Solid State III

Magnetism

 

          This course will begin with the well-established subjects: formation of local moments, classical theories of ordered magnetic states in metals and insulators and proceed to modern subject of exotic phases in frustrated quantum magnets and classical spin glasses.

Time: Monday, Wednesday, Friday (as indicated) 3:20-4:40.

Serin 401.

         

Synopsis.

Past and coming lectures.

1.      Sept 7. Plan of the course. Introduction.

2.      Sept 12. Formation of magnetic moments in atomic gases. Thermodynamics of paramagnetic gas. Relaxation times (estimate). 

3.      Sept 14. Formation of magnetic moments in atoms in solids. Crystal field effect: simplistic treatment (for group representation theory see [5], part 1). Hund’s interaction versus crystal field splitting. Typical magnetic transition metal oxides. [4]

4.      Sept 19. Concept of effective Hamiltonian. Its application to insulating magnets. Typical energy scales of moment formation and their interaction. Direct exchange interaction. Effective Hamiltonian of magnetic moments: anisotropy of single ion term, ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic spin-spin interaction. [1]

5.      Sept 21. Mott insulators versus band insulators. Hubbard model at the half filling as a simplest model of antiferromagnet. Classical (Neel) ground state of antiferromagnets and its stability. [6]  

6.      Sept 26. Hubbard model away from half-filling: Nagaoka theorem and formation of ferromagnets. Exotic states of one-dimensional chain. [6] and original work Y. Nagaoka, Phys. Rev. 147, 392 (1966). 

7.      Sept 28. Spin excitations in doped Hubbard model. Competition between antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic states. Phase separation.

8.      Oct. 3. Insulating ferromagnets: ground state and excitations. Quasiparticles: spin waves and their expression through quasiparticle creation-annihilation operators. Infinite density of low energy spin waves in low dimensional magnets. [2]

9.      Oct. 5. Classical nature of fluctuations in low dimensional ferromagnets. Power law correlations in low temperature phase. Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition.[7]

10.  Oct. 10. Divergence of fluctuations in low dimensional Heisenberg model. Renormalization group. [7,8]

11.  Oct. 12. Quantum fluctuations in antiferromagnets: canonical theory. [2]

12.  Oct. 17. Single spin equation of motion and their representation in terms of the effective action.  [6]

13.  Oct. 24. Effective action of quantum antiferromagnets. [6]

14.  Oct. 26. Topological terms in the effective action and their role. Lieb-Schultz-Mattis theorem. [9].

15.  Oct. 31. Topological order parameter in quantum disordered antiferromagnets. Kitaev model. [10]

16.  Nov. 2. Theories of quantum spin liquid phases.

17.  Nov. 7. Magnetic impurities in metals: Kondo problem and RKKY interaction. [1,2]

18.  Nov. 9. Ferromagnetism of metals: Stoner instability. [1,2]

19.  Nov. 14. Ferromagnet - paramagnet transition in metals at low temperature. Millis-Hertz theory and its problems. [12]

20.  Nov. 16. Single spin decoherence. Bloch equations. [1]

21.  Nov. 28. Spin glasses – phenomenology. Results of numerical simulations, upper critical dimensions. [13,14]

22.  Nov. 30. High temperature and virial expansion for RKKY glasses. Importance of non-linear susceptibility for glass transition. [13]

23.  Dec. 5.   Simplest theoretical model (Sherrington-Kirkpatrick) and its physical properties. [13]

24.  Dec. 7.   Instability of the low temperature phase of SK model. Ergodicity violation at low temperatures. [13]

25.  Dec. 12. Method replic. Replica symmetric solution. Replica symmetry breaking in SK model. [13]

26.  Dec. 14. Parisi solution and its physical meaning. [13]

Plan for future lectures: Disordered magnets. 

1.      Dynamical approach to spin glasses. 

References.

General theory:

 

1.      R. M. White “Quantum theory of magnetism”

2.      D. C. Mattis, “The theory of magnetism” volume 1

3.      L. D. Landau and E. M. Lifshitz, “Theoretical Physics”, vol. VIII chap. 5, vol IX chap. VII.

 

Special topics: 

4.      P. A. Cox “Transition metal oxides” (Very good review of moment formation and basic chemistry of these materials).

5.      J.-P. Serre “Representation lineaires des groups finis” (Excellent concise textbook on group representation theory)

6.      E. Fradkin “Field theories of condensed matter”(see Chapter 2 for the introduction to Hubbard model, Chapters 3-5 for the modern theory of quantum fluctuations in magnets).

7.      A. M. Tsvelik “Quantum field theory in condensed matter”

8.      A. M. Polyakov “Gauge Fields and strings” section 2.2.

9.      D. C. Mattis, “The many body problem”.

10.  A. Y. Kitaev, Annals of physics, 303, 2, (2003).

11.  A. Hewson “The Kondo Problem to Heavy Fermions”

12.  A. J. Millis, Phys. Rev. B 48, 7183 (1993); D. V. Efremov, J.J. Betouras and A. Chubukov, Phys. Rev. B77, 220401 (2008).

13.  K. H. Fischer and J. A. Hertz “Spin Glasses” (Cambridge Studies in Magnetism).

14.  J. A. Mydosh “Spin Glasses: An Experimental Introduction”