Conformal Invariance and Critical Phenomena - Couverture rigide

Henkel, Malte

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 354065321X ISBN 13 : 9783540653219

Editeur : Springer-Verlag Berlin and Heidelberg GmbH & Co. K, 1999

Synopsis

Critical phenomena arise in a wide variety of physical systems. Classi- cal examples are the liquid-vapour critical point or the paramagnetic- ferromagnetic transition. Further examples include multicomponent fluids and alloys, superfluids, superconductors, polymers and fully developed tur- bulence and may even extend to the quark-gluon plasma and the early uni- verse as a whole. Early theoretical investigators tried to reduce the problem to a very small number of degrees of freedom, such as the van der Waals equation and mean field approximations, culminating in Landau's general theory of critical phenomena. Nowadays, it is understood that the common ground for all these phenomena lies in the presence of strong fluctuations of infinitely many coupled variables. This was made explicit first through the exact solution of the two-dimensional Ising model by Onsager. Systematic subsequent developments have been leading to the scaling theories of critical phenomena and the renormalization group which allow a precise description of the close neighborhood of the critical point, often in good agreement with experiments. In contrast to the general understanding a century ago, the presence of fluctuations on all length scales at a critical point is emphasized today. This can be briefly summarized by saying that at a critical point a system is scale invariant. In addition, conformal invaTiance permits also a non-uniform, local rescal- ing, provided only that angles remain unchanged.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Springer-Verlag Berlin and Heidelberg GmbH & Co. K
• Date d'édition: 1999
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 354065321X
• ISBN 13: 9783540653219
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 435
• Coordonnées du fabricant: KINESIS; https://www.also.com/ec/cms5/en_6000/6000/index.jsp; ; Friedrich-Karl-Str. 9; Hamburg; 22391; Allemagne