CURRENT TRENDS IN CONDENSED MATTER, PARTICLE PHYSICS AND COSMOLOGY

Author(s):  
J Pati ◽  
Q Shafi ◽  
S Wadia ◽  
Yu Lu

This volume gathers the lectures notes of Session CVII of the Les Houches summer school of Physics, entitled “Current trends in Atomic Physics”. The school took place in July 2016 and had the goal to give the participants a broad overview of Atomic Physics as a whole, and in particular its connections to other areas of physics, such as condensed-matter and high-energy physics. The book comprises twelve chapters corresponding to lectures delivered at the school.


Author(s):  
Y. Meurice ◽  
R. Perry ◽  
S.-W. Tsai

The renormalization group (RG) method developed by Ken Wilson more than four decades ago has revolutionized the way we think about problems involving a broad range of energy scales such as phase transitions, turbulence, continuum limits and bifurcations in dynamical systems. The Theme Issue provides articles reviewing recent progress made using the RG method in atomic, condensed matter, nuclear and particle physics. In the following, we introduce these articles in a way that emphasizes common themes and the universal aspects of the method.


1997 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 697 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. W. B. Kibble

Our present theories of particle physics and cosmology, taken together, suggest that very early in its history, the universe underwent a series of phase transitions, at which topological defects, similar to those formed in some condensed matter transitions, may have been created. Such defects, in particular cosmic strings, may survive long enough to have important observable effects in the universe today. Predicting these effects requires us to estimate the initial defect density and the way that defects subsequently evolve. Very similar problems arise in condensed matter systems, and recently it has been possible to test some of our ideas about the formation of defects using experiments with liquid helium-3 (in collaboration with the Low Temperature Laboratory in Helsinki). I shall review the present status of this theory.


1984 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 185-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Subbiah Arunachalam ◽  
M.K. Dhirendra Rao ◽  
Praveen K. Shrivastava

The impact of physics research carried out in Israel on the international literature is assessed from data on publication and citation counts. We have considered in this analysis all papers published from Israel and covered under six of the ten major sections of INSPEC's Physics Abstracts, January-June 1977 (covering condensed matter physics, nuclear and particle physics, atomic and molecular physics and biophysics and physical chemistry) as well as citations to these papers as seen from five annual editions of Science Citation Index, 1977-1981. An analysis of these data permits us to identify: (i) areas of research in which Israel is strong, (ii) highly cited publications, (iii) the distribution of citations over the years, and (iv) how quickly the papers get cited. Israel accounts for less than 1% of the world's physics publications, but undeniably physics done in Israel is an integral part of the mainstream of world physics. Israeli physicists place almost all their work in foreign journals, most of them published from the United States, the Nether lands and the United Kingdom. Many of these journals have a good standing as seen from their high impact factors and immediacy indices. Nearly all papers in our sample have originated in eight institutions, indicating that Israel is free from the common Third World malady of spreading the butter of R&D budget too thinly. Overall, Israeli physics appears to be productive in condensed matter physics, nuclear physics and atomic and molecular physics. However, chemical physics tops the list if one considers both the number of papers published and the cognitive impact these papers have had. Two areas where Israel did not publish much and yet had a few publica tions of high impact are: (i) special theories, interaction models and particle systematics, and (ii) biophysics. Surprisingly for a nation interested in both the military and civilian applications of nuclear energy, Israel's publications in nuclear physics are not as well cited as her publications in many other subfields of physics.


2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (5) ◽  
pp. 605-633
Author(s):  
Julia Harriet Menzel

This paper examines the history of the renormalization group, a cornerstone of contemporary theoretical physics, focusing on the work of Kenneth Wilson (winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize in physics) and affiliated scholars in the 1970s. In particular, it reconstructs how studies of the renormalization group led to formative interactions between two distinct branches of physics, namely particle physics and condensed matter theory. Instead of explaining such intellectual coordination as the result of material and conceptual exchanges, as in Peter Galison’s widely influential discussion of the “trading zone,” my analysis emphasizes the pedagogical labor, social institutions, and political economic conditions that gave the renormalization group its mediating power. To that end, I show how early lectures and fast circulating pre-prints on the renormalization group created a population of physicists in the United States conversant in the rudiments of both condensed matter and particle theory. I then root the formation of a transatlantic network of renormalization group enthusiasts in the geopolitics of the Cold War, showing that the spread of Wilsonian ideas was made possible by a liberal internationalist program of academic exchanges and summer schools sponsored by the US state department and NATO. Finally, I argue that sharp cuts to basic science funding in the United States pushed young physicists seeking jobs in the 1970s to work across specializations, which visibly impacted how renormalization group ideas were interpreted and used—often against the objections of their original progenitors.


2008 ◽  
Vol 23 (11) ◽  
pp. 1627-1635 ◽  
Author(s):  
STEVEN WEINBERG

Reflections on spontaneous symmetry breaking, and the connection between condensed matter physics and particle physics, as given in a talk at a symposium at the University of Illinois in Urbana, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the theory of superconductivity.


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