Prof. Dr. Stefan Floerchinger

Prof. Dr. Stefan Floerchinger

Researcher and professor for quantum field theory.

Teaching

Summer term 2024, Jena: Lectures on Quantum field theory

Lectures that introduce students of physics to quantum field theory. Earlier version of this course have been offered in the summer term 2022 at Jena University, as well as in the winter terms 2020/2021 and 2018/2019 at Heidelberg University, together with Christof Wetterich.

In the information system of Jena University you can find the course here.

Content

  • Introduction and overview
  • Classical field theory
  • Classical statistical field theory
  • Quantum states
  • Quantum dynamics
  • Scattering
  • Fermions and Grassmann numbers
  • Relativistic fermions
  • Poincaré group, fields and particles
  • Quantum electrodynamics
  • Higgs/Yukawa theory

Literature

There is a large amount of literature on different aspects of quantum field theory. For this course I recommend in particular:

  • Mark Srednicki, Quantum field theory
  • Michael Peskin & Daniel Schroeder, An introduction to quantum field theory
  • Steven Weinberg, The quantum theory of fields I & II
  • Jean Zinn-Justin, Quantum field theory and critical phenomena
  • Alexander Altland & Ben Simons, Condensed matter field theory

Online lectures and lecture notes

Lectures will be provided in an online format in parallel to the course. Lecture notes are also available in pdf form here.
For an earlier version of this course (in 2020/2021) we have produced online lectures that can be found here.

Winter term 2023/2024, Jena: Lectures on Thermodynamics and Statistical Physics

Lectures (in german) that introduce students of physics to the concepts of thermodynamics and statistical physics. The material is developed deductively starting from probabilities and the information theoretic significance of entropy to gases and liquids, applications of thermodynamics, phase transitions, magnetism and diffusion.

Literatur

There are many good books on thermodynamics and statistical physics. For this course I recommend in particular:

  • Franz Schwabl, Statistische Mechanik (german or english)
  • Mehran Kardar, Statistical Physics of Particles (english)
  • L. D. Landau und E. M. Lifschitz, Lehrbuch der Theoretischen Physik V, Statistische Physik Teil 1 (many languages)

Lecture notes

Lecture notes are available in pdf form here.

Winter term 2023/2024, Jena: Lectures on Advanced quantum field theory

This course covers advanced topics in quantum field theory, such as generating functionals, the renormalization group, spontaneous symmetry breaking and the Higgs mechanism, non-Abelian gauge theories and thermal quantum field theory. Earlier versions of this course were offered in winter terms 2022/2023 at Jena University and in summer term 2019 at Heidelberg University, together with Christof Wetterich.

Online lectures and lecture notes

The lectures are available in an online format. In addition lecture notes are available in pdf form here.

Summer term 2020, Heidelberg: Lectures on Symmetries

These lectures are intended for Master students of physics. The implications of symmetry in physics are ubiquitous and very interesting. Mathematically, they are described by group theory. The lectures start with finite groups and then discuss the most important Lie groups and Lie algebras, in particular SU(2), SU(3), the Lorentz and Poincaré groups, the conformal group and the gauge groups of the standard model and of grand unification. An earlier versions of this course was offered in summer term 2017.

Content

  • Introduction and overview
  • Symmetries and conservation laws
  • Finite groups
  • Lie groups and Lie algebras
  • SU(2)
  • SU(3)
  • Classification of compact simple Lie algebras
  • Lorentz and Poincaré groups
  • Conformal group
  • Non-abelian gauge theories
  • Consequences of symmetries for effective actions
  • Grand unification

Literature

  • M. Fecko, Differential Geometry and Lie Groups for Physicists
  • P. Ramond, Group Theory, A Physicist’s Survey
  • A. Zee, Group Theory in a Nutshell for Physicsists
  • J. Fuchs and C. Schweigert, Symmetries Lie Algebras and Representations
  • H. Georgi, Lie Algebras in Particle Physics
  • H. F. Jones, Groups, Representations and Physics

Lecture notes

Lecture notes can be found here.

Lecture videos

Summer term 2018, Heidelberg: Lectures on Quantum fields and information theory

Content

  • Entropy as a measure of information
    • Shannon’s information entropy
    • von Neumann’s quantum entropy
    • Rényi entropy
    • Kullback-Leibler divergence and relative entropy
  • Gaussian states
    • Schrödinger functional
    • Density matrix
    • Correlation functions
    • Unitary and symplectic transformations
    • Williamson’s theorem
  • Entanglement
    • Reduced density matrix
    • Entanglement entropies
    • Modular hamiltonian for conformal field theory
    • Unruh effect
    • Hawking radiation, entropy and temperature of black holes
    • Entanglement in an expanding quantum string

Literature

  • M. Wilde, Quantum Information Theory
  • V. Vedral, Introduction to Quantum Information Science
  • T. M. Cover and J. A. Thomas, Elements of Information Theory
  • V. Vedral, The Role of Relative Entropy in Quantum Information Theory, Rev. Mod. Phys. 74, 197 (2002); arXiv:quant-ph/0102094.
  • J. Berges, S. Floerchinger and R. Venugopalan, Dynamics of entanglement in expanding quantum fields, JHEP 1804, 145 (2018), arXiv:1712.09362.
  • P. J. Coles, M. Berta, M. Tomamichel and S. Wehner, Entropic Uncertainty Relations and their Applications, Rev. Mod. Phys. 89, 015002 (2017), arXiv:1511.04857.

Lecture notes

Lecture notes can be accessed here.

Summer term 2016, Heidelberg: Lectures on Hydrodynamics

These lectures are intentended for Batchelor and Master students of physics. They start with the basics of fluid dynamics which rely on the conservation laws for energy, momentum and particle numbers as well as thermodynamics. The most important equations of fluid dynamics will be discussed as well as the phenomena they describe. More advanced topics are turbulence and superfluidity as well as applications of fluid dynamics in current physics research, for example in the context of heavy ion physics and cosmology.

Content

  • Introduction and overview
  • Symmetries and conservation laws
  • Thermodynamics and equation of state
  • Fluid dynamic equations of motion
  • Ideal fluid flows
  • Two-dimensional incompressible potential flows
  • Laminar viscous flows
  • Small perturbations and instabilities
  • Fluids in a gravitational field
  • Newtonian cosmology
  • Superfluidity
  • Relativistic fluid dynamics

Literature

  • L. D. Landau and E. M. Lifshitz, Fluid Mechanics (Volume 6 of Course of Theoretical Physics)
  • G. Falkovich, Fluid mechanics
  • T. E. Faber, Fluid dynamics for physicists
  • U. Frisch, Turbulence
  • G. K. Batchelor, An Introduction to Fluid Dynamics
  • D. Acheson, Elementary Fluid Dynamics
  • S. Weinberg, Gravitation and cosmology
  • R. P. Feynman, R. B. Leighton and M. L. Sands, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Volume II

Lecture notes

Lecture notes can be found here.