Statistical Mechanics Of Classical And Disordered Systems

These proceedings of the conference Advances in Statistical Mechanics, held in Marseille, France, August 2018, focus on fundamental issues of equilibrium and non-equilibrium dynamics for classical mechanical systems, as well as on open problems in statistical mechanics related to probability, mathematical physics, computer science, and biology. Statistical mechanics, as envisioned more than a century ago by Boltzmann, Maxwell and Gibbs, has recently undergone stunning twists and developments which have turned this old discipline into one of the most active areas of truly interdisciplinary and cutting-edge research. The contributions to this volume, with their rather unique blend of rigorous mathematics and applications, outline the state-of-the-art of this success story in key subject areas of equilibrium and non-equilibrium classical and quantum statistical mechanics of both disordered and non-disordered systems. Aimed at researchers in the broad field of applied modern probability theory, this book, and in particular the review articles, will also be of interest to graduate students looking for a gentle introduction to active topics of current research.

A self-contained graduate-level introduction to the statistical mechanics of disordered systems. In three parts, the book treats basic statistical mechanics; disordered lattice spin systems; and latest developments in the mathematical understanding of mean-field spin glass models. It assumes basic knowledge of classical physics and working knowledge of graduate-level probability theory.

This book offers a unified perspective on the study of complex systems with contributions written by leading scientists from various disciplines, including mathematics, physics, computer science, biology, economics and social science. It is written for researchers from a broad range of scientific fields with an interest in recent developments in complex systems.

Publisher Description

Disordered systems are statistical mechanics models in random environments. This lecture notes volume concerns the equilibrium properties of a few carefully chosen examples of disordered Ising models. The approach is that of probability theory and mathematical physics, but the subject matter is of interest also to condensed matter physicists, material scientists, applied mathematicians and theoretical computer scientists. (The two main types of systems considered are disordered ferromagnets and spin glasses. The emphasis is on questions concerning the number of ground states (at zero temperature) or the number of pure Gibbs states (at nonzero temperature). A recurring theme is that these questions are connected to interesting issues concerning percolation and related models of geometric/combinatorial probability. One question treated at length concerns the low temperature behavior of short-range spin glasses: whether and in what sense Parisi's analysis of the meanfield (or "infinite-range") model is relevant. Closely related is the more general conceptual issue of how to approach the thermodynamic (i.e., infinite volume) limit in systems which may have many complex competing states. This issue has been addressed in recent joint work by the author and Dan Stein and the book provides a mathematically coherent presentation of their approach.)

This text describes the statistical mechanics of classical spin systems with quenched disorder. The first part covers the physics of spin-glass states using results obtained within the framework of the mean field theory of spin glasses. The second part is devoted to the theory of critical phenomena in the presence of weak quenched disorder. This includes a systematic derivation of the traditional renormalization group theory. In the third part Dotsenko describes other types of disordered systems, relating them to new results at the frontiers of modern research. The book is suitable for graduate students and researchers in the field of statistical mechanics of disordered systems.

A self-contained, mathematical introduction to the driving ideas in equilibrium statistical mechanics, studying important models in detail.