This text reviews fundametals and incorporates key themes of quantum physics. One theme contrasts boson condensation and fermion exclusivity. Bose–Einstein condensation is basic to superconductivity, superfluidity and gaseous BEC. Fermion exclusivity leads to compact stars and to atomic structure, and thence to the band structure of metals and semiconductors with applications in material science, modern optics and electronics. A second theme is that a wavefunction at a point, and in particular its phase is unique (ignoring a global phase change). If there are symmetries, conservation laws follow and quantum states which are eigenfunctions of the conserved quantities. By contrast with no particular symmetry topological effects occur such as the Bohm–Aharonov effect: also stable vortex formation in superfluids, superconductors and BEC, all these having quantized circulation of some sort. The quantum Hall effect and quantum spin Hall effect are ab initio topological. A third theme is entanglement: a feature that distinguishes the quantum world from the classical world. This property led Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen to the view that quantum mechanics is an incomplete physical theory. Bell proposed the way that any underlying local hidden variable theory could be, and was experimentally rejected. Powerful tools in quantum optics, including near-term secure communications, rely on entanglement. It was exploited in the the measurement of CP violation in the decay of beauty mesons. A fourth theme is the limitations on measurement precision set by quantum mechanics. These can be circumvented by quantum non-demolition techniques and by squeezing phase space so that the uncertainty is moved to a variable conjugate to that being measured. The boundaries of precision are explored in the measurement of g-2 for the electron, and in the detection of gravitational waves by LIGO; the latter achievement has opened a new window on the Universe. The fifth and last theme is quantum field theory. This is based on local conservation of charges. It reaches its most impressive form in the quantum gauge theories of the strong, electromagnetic and weak interactions, culminating in the discovery of the Higgs. Where particle physics has particles condensed matter has a galaxy of pseudoparticles that exist only in matter and are always in some sense special to particular states of matter. Emergent phenomena in matter are successfully modelled and analysed using quasiparticles and quantum theory. Lessons learned in that way on spontaneous symmetry breaking in superconductivity were the key to constructing a consistent quantum gauge theory of electroweak processes in particle physics.
Looking for extra dimensions in compact stars
