Cross fertilization in theoretical physics: the case of condensed matter and particle physics

2003 ◽  
pp. 315-320
Author(s):  
Giovanni Jona-Lasinio
Keyword(s):  
Particle Physics ◽  
Condensed Matter ◽  
Theoretical Physics ◽  
Cross Fertilization

Wilsonian Renormalization in the 1970s

2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (5) ◽  
pp. 605-633
Author(s):  
Julia Harriet Menzel
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Renormalization Group ◽  
Particle Physics ◽  
Condensed Matter ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Theoretical Physics ◽  
Condensed Matter Theory ◽  
Summer Schools ◽  
The Cold War

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.

Integrability: From Statistical Systems to Gauge Theory

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Field Theory ◽  
Gauge Theory ◽  
Summer School ◽  
Condensed Matter ◽  
Theoretical Physics ◽  
Conformal Field ◽  
The Past ◽  
Background Material ◽  
Supersymmetric Gauge ◽  
Statistical Systems

This volume contains lectures delivered at the Les Houches Summer School ‘Integrability: from statistical systems to gauge theory’ held in June 2016. The School was focussed on applications of integrability to supersymmetric gauge and string theory, a subject of high and increasing interest in the mathematical and theoretical physics communities over the past decade. Relevant background material was also covered, with lecture series introducing the main concepts and techniques relevant to modern approaches to integrability, conformal field theory, scattering amplitudes, and gauge/string duality. The book will be useful not only to those working directly on integrablility in string and guage theories, but also to researchers in related areas of condensed matter physics and statistical mechanics.

scholarly journals New applications of the renormalization group method in physics: a brief introduction

2011 ◽  
Vol 369 (1946) ◽  
pp. 2602-2611 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Meurice ◽  
R. Perry ◽  
S.-W. Tsai
Keyword(s):  
Renormalization Group ◽  
Phase Transitions ◽  
Dynamical Systems ◽  
Particle Physics ◽  
Recent Progress ◽  
Condensed Matter ◽  
Group Method ◽  
Renormalization Group Method ◽  
Theme Issue ◽  
New Applications

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.

17th Annual Conference of the Physical Society of Hong Kong

2015 ◽  
Vol 04 (01) ◽  
pp. 47-47
Author(s):  
Kin-Yiu WONG
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Condensed Matter ◽  
Theoretical Physics ◽  
Annual Conference ◽  
Condensed Matter Physics ◽  
Energy Materials

On June 7th 2014 (Saturday), the 17th Annual Conference of the Physical Society of Hong Kong (PSHK), was hosted by the Department of Physics of Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU). It was jointly organized by the Departments of Physics of six local universities (HKBU, CityU, CUHK, PolyU, HKUST, HKU), and was successfully held in the Tsang Chan Sik Yue Auditorium (and other second floor classrooms) of the Academic & Administration Building. The five themes of this conference are: (1) Metamaterials for Wave Manipulation; (2) Energy Materials and Devices; (3) Condensed Matter Physics; (4) Theoretical Physics and Astronomy; (5) Interdisciplinary Topics. Three internationally prestigious researchers, Prof. Ching W. Tang, Prof. Ping Sheng, and Prof. Henry Tye, were invited to give plenary talks, which were quite inspiring. Together with seventeen invited talks, forty contributed talks, and thirty-three posters, the Saturday event has attracted a total of more than one hundred participants consisting of local and overseas scholars and students. At the end of this conference, four Best Student Poster Awards were given to Chang Shuai (CUHK), Zhenghui Wu (HKBU), Shen Chan (HKUST), and Jiajun Zhang (CUHK). This important annual conference of PSHK will again be hosted by the Department of Physics at PolyU in the year 2015.

scholarly journals Similarities Between the AdS/CFT Correspondence and the Binding Problem

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Elliott
Keyword(s):  
Black Holes ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Condensed Matter ◽  
Boundary Surface ◽  
Theoretical Physics ◽  
Binding Problem ◽  
Physical Systems ◽  
Combine Information ◽  
The Brain

The binding problem refers to the puzzle of how the brain combines objects’ properties such as motion, color, shape, location, sound, etc., from diverse regions of the brain and forms a unified subjective experience. Holographic physical systems, recently discovered darlings of theoretical physics, began with research into black holes but have since evolved into the study of condensed matter systems in the laboratory like superfluids and superconductors. A primary example is the AdS/CFT correspondence. A recent conjecture of this correspondence suggests that holographic systems combine information from across a boundary surface, sort out the simplest description of said information, and, in turn, use it to determine the geometry of spacetime itself in the interior - a kind of geometric hologram. Although we would never tend to think of these two processes as related, in this paper we point out ten similarities between the two and show that holographic systems are the only physical systems that match the subjective and computational characteristics of the binding problem.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Andrew Zangwill
Keyword(s):  
State Physics ◽  
Solid State ◽  
Symmetry Breaking ◽  
Particle Physics ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
Theoretical Physics ◽  
Solid State Physics ◽  
Scientific Enterprise ◽  
Big Ideas ◽  
Rules Of The Game

This chapter provides an overview of Anderson’s career and contrasts his speciality, the physics of the very many (solid-state physics), with the areas of physics that tend to appear in popular media—the physics of the very small (particle physics) and the physics of the very distant (astrophysics and cosmology). It compares Anderson’s physics skills to those of a chess grandmaster. The number of pieces (atoms and electrons) is so large that merely knowing the microscopic rules of the game is not enough to gain real understanding. There is a focus on the big ideas Anderson brought to the table—symmetry breaking, emergence, and complexity—and also his great interest in the cultural and political aspects of physics. The goal of the book is to help readers understand the magician-like skills Anderson brought to theoretical physics and the effect these had on his students, coworkers, community, and on scientific enterprise.

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