This open access book is about spontaneous symmetry breaking, which is a classic area of theoretical physics that lies at the core of many fascinating phenomena such as ferromagnetism, superfluidity, superconductivity, or the Higgs mechanism. The book brings an up-to-date overview of spontaneous symmetry breaking and of modern effective field theory description thereof. The topics covered include the classification of NambuGoldstone bosons, nonlinear realization of internal and spacetime symmetries and the construction of the corresponding effective actions, and selected applications. With in-depth exposition of conceptual foundations and numerous illustrative examples, the book is accessible to anybody having taken a basic course on quantum field theory. It serves as a self-contained text for graduate students and junior researchers in diverse areas of physics, but also as a useful reference for experts.

Provides a thorough review of recent research on spontaneous symmetry breaking Offers a detailed explanation, including common concepts and terminology Helps readers understand the language used in field theory This book is open access, which means that you have free and unlimited access

Autorentext

Tomá Brauner earned his PhD in theoretical physics, astronomy, and astrophysics from Charles University in Prague in 2006. Following postdoctoral positions in Frankfurt, Bielefeld, Helsinki, and Vienna, he joined the University of Stavanger as an associate professor of physics in 2015 and was promoted to full professor in 2016. His research interests encompass various aspects of quantum field theory and its applications to particle, nuclear, and condensed-matter physics, with a particular emphasis on the role of symmetries and their spontaneous breaking.

Inhalt
Introduction.- Our first model.- Generalizations of the model.- Spontaneous symmetry breaking.- NambuGoldstone bosons.- Effective field theory.- Nonlinear realization of symmetry.- Low-energy effective field theory.- Some examples and applications.- Scattering of NambuGoldstone bosons.- Differences between internal and spacetime symmetry.- Nonlinear realization of spacetime symmetry.- Broken spacetime symmetry in quantum matter.- Broken spacetime symmetry in classical matter.- Topics not covered in this book.- Some open questions. Appendix.