The Physics of Phase Transitions occupies an important place at the crossroads of several fields central to materials sciences. This second edition incorporates new developments in the states of matter physics, in particular in the domain of nanomaterials and atomic Bose-Einstein condensates where progress is accelerating. New information and application examples are included. This work deals with all classes of phase transitions in fluids and solids, containing chapters on evaporation, melting, solidification, magnetic transitions, critical phenomena, superconductivity, and more. End-of-chapter problems and complete answers are included.

Describing the physical properties of quantum materials near critical points with long-range many-body quantum entanglement, this book introduces readers to the basic theory of quantum phases, their phase transitions and their observable properties. This second edition begins with a new section suitable for an introductory course on quantum phase transitions, assuming no prior knowledge of quantum field theory. It also contains several new chapters to cover important recent advances, such as the Fermi gas near unitarity, Dirac fermions, Fermi liquids and their phase transitions, quantum magnetism, and solvable models obtained from string theory. After introducing the basic theory, it moves on to a detailed description of the canonical quantum-critical phase diagram at non-zero temperatures. Finally, a variety of more complex models are explored. This book is ideal for graduate students and researchers in condensed matter physics and particle and string theory.

First published in 1971, this highly popular text is devoted to the interdisciplinary area of critical phenomena, with an emphasis on liquid-gas and ferromagnetic transitions. Advanced undergraduate and graduate students in thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, and solid state physics, as well as researchers in physics, mathematics, chemistry, and materials science, will welcome this paperback edition of Stanley's acclaimed text.

A clear, concise and rigorous textbook covering phase transitions in the context of advances in electronic structure and statistical mechanics.

Phase transitions--changes between different states of organization in a complex system--have long helped to explain physics concepts, such as why water freezes into a solid or boils to become a gas. How might phase transitions shed light on important problems in biological and ecological complex systems? Exploring the origins and implications of sudden changes in nature and society, Phase Transitions examines different dynamical behaviors in a broad range of complex systems. Using a compelling set of examples, from gene networks and ant colonies to human language and the degradation of diverse ecosystems, the book illustrates the power of simple models to reveal how phase transitions occur. Introductory chapters provide the critical concepts and the simplest mathematical techniques required to study phase transitions. In a series of example-driven chapters, Ricard Solé shows how such concepts and techniques can be applied to the analysis and prediction of complex system behavior, including the origins of life, viral replication, epidemics, language evolution, and the emergence and breakdown of societies. Written at an undergraduate mathematical level, this book provides the essential theoretical tools and foundations required to develop basic models to explain collective phase transitions for a wide variety of ecosystems.

The book provides an introduction to the physics which underlies phase transitions and to the theoretical techniques currently at our disposal for understanding them. It will be useful for advanced undergraduates, for post-graduate students undertaking research in related fields, and for established researchers in experimental physics, chemistry, and metallurgy as an exposition of current theoretical understanding. - ;Recent developments have led to a good understanding of universality; why phase transitions in systems as diverse as magnets, fluids, liquid crystals, and superconductors can be brought under the same theoretical umbrella and well described by simple models. This book describes the physics underlying universality and then lays out the theoretical approaches now available for studying phase transitions. Traditional techniques, mean-field theory, series expansions, and the transfer matrix, are described; the Monte Carlo method is covered, and two chapters are devoted to the renormalization group, which led to a break-through in the field. The book will be useful as a textbook for a course in `Phase Transitions', as an introduction for graduate students undertaking research in related fields, and as an overview for scientists in other disciplines who work with phase transitions but who are not aware of the current tools in the armoury of the theoretical physicist. - ;Introduction; Statistical mechanics and thermodynamics; Models; Mean-field theories; The transfer matrix; Series expansions; Monte Carlo simulations; The renormalization group; Implementations of the renormalization group. -

Covering the elementary aspects of the physics of phases transitions and the renormalization group, this popular book is widely used both for core graduate statistical mechanics courses as well as for more specialized courses. Emphasizing understanding and clarity rather than technical manipulation, these lectures de-mystify the subject and show precisely "how things work." Goldenfeld keeps in mind a reader who wants to understand why things are done, what the results are, and what in principle can go wrong. The book reaches both experimentalists and theorists, students and even active researchers, and assumes only a prior knowledge of statistical mechanics at the introductory graduate level.Advanced, never-before-printed topics on the applications of renormalization group far from equilibrium and to partial differential equations add to the uniqueness of this book.

Theory of Phase Transitions: Rigorous Results is inspired by lectures on mathematical problems of statistical physics presented in the Mathematical Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest. The aim of the book is to expound a series of rigorous results about the theory of phase transitions. The book consists of four chapters, wherein the first chapter discusses the Hamiltonian, its symmetry group, and the limit Gibbs distributions corresponding to a given Hamiltonian. The second chapter studies the phase diagrams of lattice models that are considered at low temperatures. The notions of a ground state of a Hamiltonian and the stability of the set of the ground states of a Hamiltonian are also introduced. Chapter 3 presents the basic theorems about lattice models with continuous symmetry, and Chapter 4 focuses on the second-order phase transitions and on the theory of scaling probability distributions, connected to these phase transitions. Specialists in statistical physics and other related fields will greatly benefit from this publication.

This book deals with the phenomenological theory of first-order structural phase transitions, with a special emphasis on reconstructive transformations in which a group-subgroup relationship between the symmetries of the phases is absent. It starts with a unified presentation of the current approach to first-order phase transitions, using the more recent results of the Landau theory of phase transitions and of the theory of singularities. A general theory of reconstructive phase transitions is then formulated, in which the structures surrounding a transition are expressed in terms of density-waves, providing a natural definition of the transition order-parameters, and a description of the corresponding phase diagrams and relevant physical properties. The applicability of the theory is illustrated by a large number of concrete examples pertaining to the various classes of reconstructive transitions: allotropic transformations of the elements, displacive and order-disorder transformations in metals, alloys and related structures, crystal-quasicrystal transformations.

Phase transitions occur throughout nature. The most familiar example is the one that occurs in water – the abrupt, discontinuous transition from a liquid to a gas or a solid, induced by a subtle environmental change. Practically magical, the ever-so-slight shift of temperature or pressure can induce an astonishing transition from one entity to another entity that bears little resemblance to the first. So "convenient" a feature is seen throughout the domains of physics and chemistry, and one is therefore led to wonder whether it might also be common to biology. Indeed, many of the most fundamental cellular processes are arguably attributable to radical structural shifts triggered by subtle changes that cross a critical threshold. These processes include transport, motion, signaling, division, and other fundamental aspects of cellular function. Largely on the basis of this radical concept, a symposium was organized in Poitiers, France, to bring together people who have additional evidence for the role of phase transitions in biology, and this book is a compendium of some of the more far-reaching of those presentations, as well as several others that seemed to the editors to be compelling. The book should be suitable for anyone interested in the nature of biological function, particularly those who tire of lumbering along well trodden pathways of pursuit, and are eager to hear something fresh. The book is replete with fresh interpretations of familiar phenomena, and should serve as an excellent gateway to deeper understanding.