| LECTURE DATE |
TOPIC
COVERED |
1 - Aug. 28
|
Introduction and
Overview of Phase Transitions
|
Home reading
|
Statistical
Thermodynamics (Review)
|
2 - Aug. 30
|
First and Second Order
Phase Transitions; Van der Waals Equation
|
3 -Sep. 6
|
Spontaneous
Symmetry Breaking |
4 - Sep. 11
|
Droplets, Crystals, Glasses |
|
Home reading
|
Further Examples of
Critical Phenomena |
| 5 - Sep. 13 |
Controlling
Mean-Field Theory
|
6 - Sep. 18
|
Landau-Ginzburg
Theory |
7 - Sep. 20
|
Spatial Correlations and
Ginzburg Criterion |
| 8 - Sep. 25 |
Domain Walls and
Surface Tension |
9 - Sep.
27
|
1D Ising Model |
10 - Oct. 2
|
Tunneling and Instantons |
11 - Oct. 4
|
Widom Scaling |
12 - Oct. 9
|
Quantum Critical Scaling |
13 - Oct. 11
|
Kadanoff
Scaling |
| 14 - Oct. 16 |
Migdal-Kadanoff RG |
Oct. 18
|
MID-TERM
EXAM
|
15 -
Oct. 23
|
Phi-4 Theory
|
16 - Oct. 25
|
Renormalization of the
Gaussian Model |
17 - Oct. 30
|
Power Counting, Relevant and
Irrelevant Operators |
18 - Nov. 1
|
Perturbation theory below d=4 and the
Ginzburg region |
19 - Nov. 6
|
4-Epsilon Expansion |
20 - Nov. 8
|
Continuous Symmetry and
Goldstone modes |
22 - Nov. 13
|
2+Epsilon Expansion,
Localization, and Asymptotic Freedom |
23 - Nov. 15
|
Quantum Phase
Transitions: Finite T vs. T=0 |
24 - Nov. 20-24
|
THANKSGIVING
|
| 25 - Nov. 27 |
Quasi
Long-Range Order in d=2 |
| 26 - Nov. 29 |
Vortices and
the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless
Transition |
27 - Dec. 4
|
Surface
Roughening and the Sine-Gordon Model
|
29 - Dec. 6
|
Critical
behavior at the Kosterlitz-Thouless transition |
Dec. 15 (due)
|
FINAL EXAM (TAKE HOME)
|