The Quantum Mechanics of Many-Body Systems

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Written by a co-winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize in physics, this monograph introduces advanced undergraduates and graduate students of physics to the "many-body" theory in theoretical physics. The treatment addresses problems and solutions related to nuclear and atomic physics, the electron theory of metals, and the theories of liquid helium three and four.A unified account of the field rather than a description of parallel methods, the text's main thematic approaches include the self-consistent field and its generalizations, perturbation theory and the use of Feynman diagrams, and the use of Green functions to describe excitations of a many-body system. The primary emphasis is on the theories of atomic nuclei, the electron gas, superconductivity, and liquid helium three. A familiarity with the principles of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics is assumed, but a detailed knowledge of nuclear and solid state physics is unnecessary.