Physics 171.622:

Advanced Statistical Mechanics
Fall Semester

Page Contents:
  1. Important Messages From the Professor
  2. Professor & TA Contact Information
  3. Class & Section Meeting Times
  4. Course Description
  5. Textbooks
  6. Grading Method
  7. Syllabus (Under Construction)
Messages From the Professor

None at this time

Contact Information
 

Professor

Teaching Assistant

Mark Robbins NA
[email protected] NA
x7204  NA
Bloomberg 317  NA
Office Hours 

Tentative: Th 3-4, Fri 1-2 

NA 

NA

Class:

9:00-10:30AM: Thursday and Friday in Blmbg. 361.

Course Description:

The semester will begin with transport in metals and semiconductors.  Then electron-electron interactions and optical properties will be covered. The remainder of the course will cover superconductivity, disordered systems, and other topics of interest to the class.

Textbooks (required):

Grading:

There will not be any exams.  Homework will count for 80% of the grade.  The remaining 20% will be based on an oral or written presentation that each student must give on a research paper related to the course content.  These papers will be chosen in collaboration with the professor.

Homework:

Solving problems is not only the best way to learn physics, it is the only way. For this reason, the problem sets are probably the most important part of the course. You may work together on the problem sets; however the final writeup should be your own. To get the greatest benefit from the problems sets you should attempt to think through every problem yourself before discussing it with others. Problem sets are due on the Friday the week after they were assigned. Late homework will be given reduced credit. No credit will be given for homework more than one week late without prior approval for a compelling reason.

Syllabus: The syllabus will be updated as the course progresses.
 
Week of Subject Matter Reading Problems
Jan. 29 Transport Properties Ch. 13,16 Ch 13:2,5; 16.1 
Feb. 5 Landau levels and Fermi surfaces Ch. 14,15 Ch 14: 1,3
Feb. 12 Semiconductors Ch. 28 Ch. 28:4,6a-c
Feb. 19 Devices and Electron Correlations Ch. 29,17 Ch. 17:1,2
Feb. 26 Electron Correlations  Handout
Mar. 5 Screening and Cooper Pairing Ch. 17,26 Ch 26:2,3 
Mar. 12 Superconductivity (Experiments and Ginzburg Landau theory) Tinkham  
Mar. 19 Spring Vacation
Mar. 26 Bogoliubov transformation and BCS theory Notes
Apr. 2 Quasiparticles and tunnelling Notes
Apr. 9 SQUIDS, Excitations in Disordered Systems Notes Handout
Apr. 16 Neutron scattering, Excitations in Disordered systems Handout
Apr. 23 Topological Defects Handout
Apr. 30 Magnetism Ch. 31-3 Paper
May 7 Talks by students Monday and Tuesday