Winter term 22/23: Fifty Shades of Condensed Matter Physics

Inverted-classroom seminar featuring the ubiquitous themes of condensed matter physics   
   
Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Ferdinand Evers

Room: Phy 5.0.20, Time: Mondays 10.15 - 11.45 (2 SWS), Vorlesungsverzeichnis: 52461

GRIPS course page

Participants: The recommended knowledge for participating is quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics and condensed matter physics. Therefore, while everyone is invited, it will probably be students on Master and PhD levels, in particular the members of the Integrated Research and Training Group (IRTG) of the SFB 1277, who will benefit most easily.

Goal: The goal of this seminar is to provide a small set of ordering principles. They allow to categorize many topics in condensed matter physics that often appear unrelated to each other, while they actually are (sometimes closely) related in the broader perspective.

Teaching concept:  The working mode of the seminar is the inverted classroom concept. Prior to each seminar, the participants will be provided with a reading list of selected articles or book chapters on specific topics. Each seminar will begin with a brief introduction on the specific topic given by the lecturer. Then, the articles read by the students will be discussed with a special emphasis on the physical content. The end of each seminar will provide a set of test questions for the students so as to self-monitor the individual progress.

Preliminary list of suggested topics:

• Anderson model/transition

• Renormalization group

• Quantum phase transitions (Ising model)

• Coulomb blockade and Kondo effect

• Conceptual underpinnings of DFT and GW

• Fluctuation-dissipation theorem

• Landau theory of Fermi liquids

• Luttinger liquid

• Different kinds of Chern numbers

• Random phase approximation

• Landau-Zener transitions

• Charge-density waves

• Peierls instability

• Light-matter interaction

• Plasmons, polaritons, excitons, trions, ...

• Satellites in optical spectra

• Minimal coupling

• Random matrix theory

• Zero and first sound