Book Description

The main theme of the book is focused on the intimate connection between two families of exactly solvable models: the inverse-square (ISE) and the nearest-neighbor exchange (NNE) models. The NNE models are Bethe-Ansatz solvable and include the Heisenberg spin chain, t-J models and Hubbard models. The ISE Calogero-Sutherland family of models are simple to solve and contain essentially the same physics as the NNE family.The author introduces and discusses current topics, such as the Luttinger liquid concept, fractional statistics, and spin-charge separation, in the context of the explicit models. ... Read more

Book Description

Starting from basic electrodynamics, this volume provides a solid, yet concise introduction to theoretical optics, containing topics such as nonlinear optics, light-matter interaction, and modern topics in quantum optics, including entanglement, cryptography, and quantum computation.

The author, with many years of experience in teaching and research, goes way beyond the scope of traditional lectures, enabling readers to keep up with the current state of knowledge. Both content and presentation make it essential reading for graduate and phD students as well as a valuable reference for researchers. ... Read more

Book Description

All integrated optical components and devices make use of "waveguides", where light is confined by total internal reflection. The elements in such "photonic chip" are interconnected through waveguides, and also the integrated optics components themselves are fabricated using waveguide configuration, such as couplers, switches, modulators, multiplexors, amplifiers and lasers, etc. These components are integrated in a single substrate, thus resulting in a compact and robust photonic device, which can be optically connected through optical fibres.
With and increase in the number of integrated optical components and devices emerging from the research laboratories to the market place an up-to-date book is essential in collecting, summarizing and presenting the new developed photonic devices. This includes fundamental aspects, technical aspects (such as fabrication techniques and materials) and characterisation and performance.
This is an advanced text aimed at specialists in the field of photonics, but who may be new to the field of integrated photonics. The fundamental aspects have been carefully considered, and all the topics covered by the book start at a medium level, making it highly relevant for undergraduate and post-graduate students following this discipline.

... Read more

Book Description

Comprehensive, clearly presented work considers such subjects as quantization of the electron-positron field, response to an external field, quantization of free field, quantum electrodynamics, interacting fields, Heisenberg representation, the S-matrix, and Feynman’s approach to quantum electrodynamics. An excellent resource for individuals as well as libraries and other institutions.
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Reviews (1)

A master teaches the basics of quantum field theory
These are notes taken from the Pauli lectures on field quantization at Zurich, where he taught for many years. They are magnificent in their clarity and succint as only Pauli could be. Basically they explain how to quantize the basic free fields and introduce in a beautiful way the Dyson method of introducing (perturbative) interactions, renormalization comprised. Fine points, like the Gupta-Bleuler method, get a critical and clear treatment. The language is surprisingly modern, with emphasis in vacuum expectation values, kernels, etc. The last chapter treats the Feynman method of path integrals. This must have been one of the very first published reviews of this method: it is done, of course, quite originally. One should read every scrap of paper left by Pauli, a deep and original thinker who expressed himself with unsurpassed clarity, let alone this lovingly produced book. ... Read more

Book Description

A.M. Polyakov, one of the world's foremost leaders on the subject of field theory, has created a book from his own scientific diary, synthesizing the most promising approaches and ideals in field theory today. Polyakov presents such subjects as statistical mechanics, quantum field theory and their interrelation, continuous global symmetry, non-Abelian gauge fields, instantons and the quantum theory of loops, and quantum strings and random surfaces. This book is ideally suited for postgraduate students studying field theory and statistical mechanics and for research workers in continuous global theory. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

From Ising To Gauge Fields and Strings
This book manifests the author's unique perspective on physics.
The author claims that the profound aspect of quantum gauge fields is that they can almost be regarded as the theory of strings. These strings are in essence the Faraday flux lines.
The deeper understanding of quantum physics involving gauge fields demands the study of dynamics of quantum strings.
Quantum strings turn out to produce the graviton thus can
give a theory of quantum gravity.
These are all pioneered by the author for past three decades and
neatly explained in this book. ... Read more

Book Description

This volume explains the fundamental concepts and theoretical techniques used to understand the properties of quantum systems used to understand the properties of quantum systems having large numbers of degrees of freedom. A number of complimentary approaches are developed, including perturbation theory; nonpurturbative approximations based on functional integrals; general arguments based on order parameters; symmetry, and Fermi liquid theory; and stochastic methods. Each approach provides its own insights and quantitative capabilities, and in conjunction provide a powerful framework for understanding a wide variety of physical systems. Written at a level for graduate students with no prior background in manybody theory, this classic text is intended for physicists in solid state physics, field theory, atomic physics, condensed matter physics, quantum chemistry, and nuclear physics. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Clear, precise, and modern
A great physics book for field theory applied to condensed
matter and sometimes nuclear physics problems. The authors
are EXTREMELY careful mathematically and really don't skip
any steps or shove stuff under the rug; in fact, the first
chapter is just all math about how to do integrals and path
integrals and field integrals and deal with Grassman numbers.
A bit unusual for a physics book, but that's their style.

The rest of the book deals with the usual and other material:

zero-temperature Green's functions and perturbation theory
(for energy, Green's function, etc.) The treatment is detailed
and relatively exhaustive. Then there is the same for finite-
temperature. The earlier sections on linear response are
concise and one of the best treatments of the subject I have
seen leading directly to the fluctuation dissipation expression
(after this book I realized this vaunted "fluctuation-dissipation" that no one can explain is just
a straightforward thing about commutators and pert. theory).

The book also has other good stuff: a chapter on mean field theory, Landau-Ginzburg theory, order parameters, and a nice
discussion about spontaneous symmetry breaking that helps
clarify a bunch of stuff. Then there is a whole chapter on
further aspects of one-particle Green's functions (Dyson
equation, solving for poles, quasiparticles, satellites, etc.)
that is pretty good and gets the physical point across. There
is also a chapter on statistical (monte carlo, numerical, etc.)
methods for doing quantum many body problems. While some of
the methods are not the most up to date or modern, the basics
are all there (Monte Carlo, Hubbard-Strataonvich (spelling?),
inverting matrices via Monte Carlo, some stuff about lattice
systems, Langevin equation simulation for Monte Carlo, updating
problems, etc.) There is also a chapter on more advanced
functional integration stuff. Also there is a nice description
of the loop expansion and whatnot.

The book is very well written, has no errors as far as I can
tell, and is exhaustive on what it treats. The problems at
the end of the first few chapters deal with physics problems
and help build intuition whereas the texts in these chapters
are more formal. The book could use some more physical insights
sprinkled throughout, but that is not too much of a drawback.

The book is based on functional integration (Feynman integral)
methods for field theory: this is the modern way folks do it
and it is a powerful way of doing field theory both to
derive results, connect results, do expansions and what not,
and also for certain kinds of monte carl computations. So
having read this, the reader is up to date on a pretty modern
view of field theory in condensed matter (and somewhat on
nuclear physics).

Highly recommended unless you can't stand precise and long
mathematical treatments. My only misgiving is that sometimes
I wish the authors provided more physical insights for certain
concepts and gave some examples rather than "just the math";
but they do this in other parts of the book, so perhaps
my complaint, which is not that serious, is more about the
uneven way this is done. Nevertheless, this is 5/5 and a book
you will read many times and learn from many times.

The only book touches the path integral method in many-body
Among the available textbooks of many-body theory, like Mahan's, AGD's ..., this is the "only" one which touches the path-integral method. Based on the coherent state representation, the author systematically introduced the Green's Function formalism at finite and zero temperatures. Applications to phase transitions, Landau Fermi Liquid and Stochastic processes are also discussed. Overall, it's a good introduction textbook, also ideal for self-study. Its exercises are more noteworthy for lots of beatiful physics. Yet, it didn't cover topics like spin path integrals, non-linear sigma model ...., which are more interesting in frontier research.

An important book for beginner cond-mat physicists and more.
A very good introduction to the many particle systems, includes all from the basics of coherent states to very complex parts of theory. ... Read more

Book Description

James Clerk Maxwell's (1831-1879) contributions to twentieth-century science and technology - in particular, the displacement current and the electromagnetic theory of light - are among the most spectacular innovations in the history of physics, but the technical complexities and thematic subtleties of his work have been difficult to unravel. In considering the historical development of Maxwell's work, Dr Siegel's close analysis of the original texts - with careful attention to the equations as well as to the words - reveals that mechanical modeling played a crucial role in Maxwell's initial conceptualizations of the displacement current and the electromagnetic character of light. Beyond this, Siegel locates Maxwell's work in the full sweep of nineteenth-century electromagnetic theory - from Oersted, Ampere, and Faraday, through Hertz and Lorentz - and in the context of the methodological traditions and perspectives of early physics research at the Universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Still a classic after more than fifteen years
I left the field of physics twenty years ago, and as a graduate physicist I am now doing social science research into information systems. But I like to stay informed about current developments in physics. And certainly a unified theory of the fundamental forces of nature is attracting a lot of attention from both specialists and laymen alike. I knew that gauge theories are important for a unified theory, and nobody interested in physics could escape the renewed interest through the awarding of the 1999 Nobel Prize in physics to Veltman and 't Hooft. So I bought this classic text of Chris Quigg. Many popular books on modern physics (e.g. Bedersen, 1999) quote this text. By no means I was disappointed. Of course the mathematics is often difficult, but the author is starting each chapter outlining what the fundamental ideas are. And that alone makes the book a good read. The book has nine chapters, and each chapter is concluded with an assessment or a reflection on the contents, which are highly understandable. Many of the problems of 1983, when the book was published, are still open today. It is didactically very suited as textbook or reference book for those physicists wishing to specialize in high energy physics. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Not good at all
Want to learn topological field theory? Better read Witten's original paper and other papers on geometric quantization. This book is extremely unclear, not well-organized, with a number of mistakes. ... Read more

Book Description

This encyclopedia is the first to offer in-depth coverage of imaging science and technology from a diverse range of applications, techniques and fields of study.

Today imaging is used by astronomers to map distant galaxies, oceanographers to map the sea floor, chemists to map the distribution of atoms on a surface, physicians to map the functionality of the brain and electrical engineers to map electromagnetic fields around power lines. With this encyclopedia, scientists, engineers and physicians can understand more about the science and technology behind the imaging techniques they are currently using and learn the latest technologies.

Diverse coverage offers the ability to learn from applications in archeology, aviation, astronomy, chemistry, forensics, geography, mathematics, medicine, meteorology, microscopy, oceanography, surveillance and more....and how to apply those imaging solutions to many different problems.

Also available in a user-friendly, online edition The new electronic version of the Encyclopedia, accessible through Wiley InterScience, offers enhanced browsing, searching and cross-referencing capabilities. Visit www.interscience.wiley.com/eist ... Read more

Book Description

The main theme of this best-selling book is that the transmission of energy by wave propagation is fundamental to almost every branch of physics. Therefore, besides giving students a thorough grounding in the theory of wave and vibrations, the book also demonstrates the pattern and unity of a large part of physics. This new edition has been thoroughly revised with the help of Professor Lyle Roelofs of Haverford College, USA. As with earlier editions, there are large numbers of problems together with hints on how to solve them. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

A Valuable Reference
One day when the professor who was teaching the Wave Phenomena and Modern Physics quarter of my General Physics sequence was away serving on a thesis review panel or some such business, the professor who had taught the Electricity and Magnetism quarter took over the class. Before giving lecture he commented, "I really hate your text. There's no physics in it. It's a math text."

In an important way he was correct. Pain's text covers a wide variety of physical phenomena which are similar to each other in coceptual ways and are related in the mathematical methods used to treat them. He does not make any particular attempt to explore the relations among the topic when they exist nor does he especially attempt to deepen the reader's physical intuition. In this sense this text is lacking as a teaching tool.

However I have the sense that this text was meant for a different use. Pain provides the reader with a solid background in the mathematical methods used to tackle situations from vibrating membranes to basic physical optics to introductory wave mechanics. Admittedly it helps to come to this text with the proper mathematical background: some knowledge of Fourier analysis, some knowledge of partial differetntial equations, etc. For a student with the proper prerequisites this text can serve as a valuable refernce, which is the capacity in which my professor used this book.

Ultimately the value of this book depends on the nature of the course in which it is used (I would not recommend it as a first self-study course in this topic). A complete and rigorous lecture series or an aditional, more intuitive text are a fine complement to Pain's work. It is, in addition, a text I will always keep as a reference for my further work.

Usuable, but difficult
While getting its point across, this book was filled with errors and proved to be incredibly confusing at times. Pain often makes theoretical jumps in logic that are difficult to trace for an undergraduate student, as he provides little in the way of an explanation. This text is useable, but approach with caution.

Great book!
Great book,very comprehensive. It should be used only after knowing calculus with more than one variable. Fundamental book for students that learn physics. ... Read more

Book Description

In this hardcover edition of a classic study, a renowned student of ocean wave theory offers extended discussions of the data requirements and the details of power spectral analysis required to make the wave revolution intelligible. While the discussions are centered on waves for clarity, once the techniques are understood, they can be transferred with profit to many other areas. After an illuminating introduction in which Professor Kinsman outlines the nature of waves and wave processes and methods of measurement and classification, he proceeds to a detailed examination of the topic, relying heavily on mathematical models. Throughout, the text is enhanced and clarified by 270 figures and illustrations, including 40 excellent black-and-white photographs, a special attraction of this volume since high-quality ocean photographs are often remarkably hard to find. Also appealing is Professor Kinsman's advice recommending that the student not rely solely on mathematical models and theory but that he go and look at the sea for himself. As the author states with characteristic wry perception: "We can form concepts in our minds and attach names to them. It is often very useful to do so, but there need not necessarily be anything observable in the sea that corresponds to the concept or the name." A helpful bibliography and indices by subject and name round out this indispensable addition to the oceanographer's library. Unabridged Dover republication (with additional preface) of the work published by Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1965. Prefaces. Acknowledgements. Introduction. Indices. Bibliography. 40 black-and-white photographs. 213 figures. 17 tables.
... Read more

Book Description

Guru and Hiziroglu have produced an accessible and user-friendly text on electromagnetics that will appeal to both students and professors teaching this course. This lively book includes many worked examples and problems in every chapter, as well as chapter summaries and background revision material where appropriate. The book introduces undergraduate students to the basic concepts of electrostatic and magnetostatic fields, before moving on to cover Maxwell's equations, propagation, transmission and radiation. Chapters on the Finite Element and Finite Difference method, and a detailed appendix on the Smith chart are additional enhancements. MathCad code for many examples in the book and a comprehensive solutions set are available at www.cambridge.org/0521830168. ... Read more

Book Description

This is a selection from over 250 papers published by Abdus Salam. Professor Salam has been Professor of Theoretical Physics at Imperial College, London and Director of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, for which he was largely responsible for creating. He is one of the most distinguished theoretical physicists of his generation and won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1979 for his work on the unification of electromagnetic and weak interactions. He is well known for his deep interest in the development of scientific research in the third world (to which ICTP is devoted) and has taken a leading part in setting up the Third World Academy. His research work has ranged widely over quantum field theory and all aspects of the theory of elementary particles and more recently into other fields, including high-temperature superconductivity and theoretical biology. The papers selected represent a cross section of his work covering the entire period of 50 years from his student days to the present. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Ideals and Realities
This book is an oasis in the world which reflects the legendrywork of Professor Abdus Salam (Nobel Laureate in Physics). This book contain the research work of Professor Abdus Salam in the Gauge Unified Theory and the prediction of proton decay which is now the most current concern of Physics. ... Read more

Book Description

This book presents a broad range of theory and application of statistical signal processing. The emphasis is on digital noise reduction algorithms, particularly important in the field of mobile communication. Vaseghi covers a broad range of applications, including spectral estimation, channel equalization, speech coding over noisy channels, active noise control, echo cancellation, and more. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Shallow, fragmented and dated.
The book's back cover claims that "Researchers and postgraduates in the fields of digital signal processing, statistical data analysis and telecommunications will also benefit from this extensive reference." I find this book very disappointing. Its signal processing development is unusually inexact even for beginning graduate students. Its exposition is often verbally vague and mathematically unrigorous, with rather shallow technical depth even for engineering students. Its theoretical framework seems fragmented. Its bibliography is dated and anecdotal. As an active researcher in this field, I would not recommend my colleagues to use this book.

A good book on noise reduction
A good book on noise reduction and Wiener filter. But
you may need to read some papers afterwards. Overall it
is quite good! ... Read more

Book Description

Recent advances in semiconductor technology have made it possible to fabricate microcavity structures in which both photon fields and electron-hole pairs (or excitons) are confined in a small volume comparable to their wavelength. The radiative properties of the electron-hole pairs and excitons are modified owing to the drastic change in the structure of the electromagnetic-field modes. This book is the first to give a comprehensive account of the theory of semiconductor cavity quantum electrodynamics for such systems in the weak-coupling and strong-coupling regimes. The important concepts are presented, together with relevant, recent experimental results. ... Read more

Book Description

The rapid advancement in digital technology in recent years has allowed the implementation of incredibly sophisticated digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms that make real-time tasks feasible. Real-time DSP is currently a very hot subject in today's engineering fields fuelled by the ever-increasing demand for high-performance digital signal processors. The TMS320C55x is the latest of Texas Instrument's line of highly successful DSP chips, which is anticipated to dominate the market in 2001.
Placing emphasis on the practical aspects of real time DSP concepts and applications by taking a systems design, implementation and simulation approach, this text bridges the gap in the existing DSP literature which covers theory, MATLAB and C and Lab manuals. A hands-on, tutorial approach enables the understanding of real-time DSP systems principles and real-world applications using MATLAB, C and various assembly programs based on TI's TMS320C55x.

• Tutorial based presentation, allowing the reader to master the theory of digital signal processing and the important skill of real-time DSP design and implementation techniques.

• Focuses on practical aspects of real-time DSP concepts and applications from a system design and implementation point of view

• Accompanying CD-ROM containing MATLAB and C assembly programs will allow a hands-on illustration of real-time DSP application

• For readers with access to a TI DSP lab, an Evaluation Module (EVM) with Code Compressor Studio (CCS) of TMS320C55x will be integrated into lab experiments, projects and applications from in-text references

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Reviews (1)

Good book
It is a good book for beginners in the DSP field. However, I wish the book had been concentrated on applications right from the beginning, instead of spending too much space on well known mathematics that can be found in another classical books. I hope for the next edition to be better, as the book's name implies: real time applications. Nevertheless, the book is quite motivating for the reader and, if mature enough, it can be of extreme value for engineers and scientist that need to solve problems that require real time processing. But, again, this is only found within the last parts of the book. ... Read more

Book Description

Based on a highly regarded lecture course at Moscow State University, this is a clear and systematic introduction to gauge field theory. It is unique in providing the means to master gauge field theory prior to the advanced study of quantum mechanics. Though gauge field theory is typically included in courses on quantum field theory, many of its ideas and results can be understood at the classical or semi-classical level. Accordingly, this book is organized so that its early chapters require no special knowledge of quantum mechanics. Aspects of gauge field theory relying on quantum mechanics are introduced only later and in a graduated fashion--making the text ideal for students studying gauge field theory and quantum mechanics simultaneously.

The book begins with the basic concepts on which gauge field theory is built. It introduces gauge-invariant Lagrangians and describes the spectra of linear perturbations, including perturbations above nontrivial ground states. The second part focuses on the construction and interpretation of classical solutions that exist entirely due to the nonlinearity of field equations: solitons, bounces, instantons, and sphalerons. The third section considers some of the interesting effects that appear due to interactions of fermions with topological scalar and gauge fields. Mathematical digressions and numerous problems are included throughout. An appendix sketches the role of instantons as saddle points of Euclidean functional integral and related topics.

Perfectly suited as an advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate text, this book is an excellent starting point for anyone seeking to understand gauge fields.

Book Description

Scattering theory is the study of an interacting system on a scale of time and/or distance which is large compared to the scale of the interaction itself. As such, it is the most effective means, sometimes the only means, to study microscopic nature. To understand the importance of scattering theory, consider the variety of ways in which it arises. First, there are various phenomena in nature (like the blue of the sky) which are the result of scattering. In order to understand the phenomenon (and to identify it as the result of scattering) one must understand the underlying dynamics and its scattering theory. Second, one often wants to use the scattering of waves or particles whose dynamics on knows to determine the structure and position of small or inaccessible objects. For example, in x-ray crystallography (which led to the discovery of DNA), tomography, and the detection of underwater objects by sonar, the underlying dynamics is well understood. What one would like to construct are correspondences that link, via the dynamics, the position, shape, and internal structure of the object to the scattering data. Ideally, the correspondence should be an explicit formula which allows one to reconstruct, at least approximately, the object from the scattering data. The main test of any proposed particle dynamics is whether one can construct for the dynamics a scattering theory that predictsthe observed experimental data. Scattering theory was not always so central the physics. Even thought the Coulomb cross section could have been computed by Newton, had he bothered to ask the right question, its calculation is generally attributed to Rutherford more than two hundred years later. Of course, Rutherford's calculation was in connection with the first experiment in nuclear physics. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

scattering theory in the old age.
This book cover only one subject scattering. It use the Kato Birman theory and avoids the Mourre estimate theory (which appears later). consequently the subject covered are very old.

The only interest of this book is for teaching, it explains carefully the traps and difficulties of quantum scaterring and gives a great set of examples. ... Read more