 |
|
|
|
|
1955
Temperature Green's functions
Feynman diagrams are an extraordinarily powerful way to
calculate Green's functions for individual particles in
quantum field theory, but to carry over diagram techniques
usefully into statistical physics, one eventually has to be
able to introduce non-zero temperatures. Takeo Matsubara
suggested one highly effective way to do so by constructing
so-called "temperature Green's functions," which do not
depend on time t, but rather on a fictitious "imaginary
time" [tau] = it. This made it easier to calculate the
partition function in close parallel with the techniques
one would use to obtain the vacuum expectation values of
the S-matrix in quantum field theory.
Primary:
T. Matsubara, "A new approach to quantum statistical
mechanics," Prog. Theoret. Phys. 14 (1955): 351-378.
Secondary:
Hoddeson et al. 1992, 582.
--Karl Hall
|
|
|
