Statistcal Physics Homework Exercises James Sethna http://www.physics.cornell.edu/sethna/teaching/653/

Description of advanced topics for group projects

1. Assignment 1: Litany of critical phenomena
   • Assignment
   • Crackling noises
     • Earthquakes in 1995
     • Magnetic Barkhausen noise (simulated with our model)
     • Paper crumpling
     • Fire
     • Rice Krispies^TM
     
   • Period doubling audio file, near the onset of chaos, and source mathematica file, courtesy of Erich Mueller.
2. Assignment 2: Mean field theory
   • Assignment
   • Hysteresis and Hierarchies (avalanches paper)
3. Assignment 3: The ideas behind the renormalization group
4. Assignment 4: Low dimensional systems
5. Assignment 5: Computational complexity and ε-expansions
6. Assignment 6: Networks and Equilibrium Crystal Shapes

Fall 2008

Various advanced topic info

• Assignment 5: Phase diagrams and fixed points
• Kosterlitz-Thouless and the lower critical dimension
• Hydrodynamics, fluctuations, flocking, and all that
• Disordered systems
• Conformal field theory
• Quantum phase transitions
• Fermi liquid theory and the renormalization group
• SLE