Journey Through Statistical Physics : Rom Foundations to The Quantum Hall Effect

This book contains selected papers of Jürg Fröhlich, one of the most outstanding mathematical physicists of our time, on the subject of statistical mechanics. In an extensive introduction, Jürg Fröhlich sets his results into a wider context and gives precious information on the genesis of his work from both a historical and a methodological perspective. It is not only an overview of current and future research directions in statistical mechanics, but also relates this subject with other branches of contemporary physics and mathematics.

All papers in this collection bear Jürg Fröhlich’s signature in terms of a delicate balance between mathematical rigor and physical significance. They cover thirty years of his work on statistical physics, ranging from the most basic foundational questions in atomism and thermodynamics via the description of phase transitions and critical phenomena up to disordered systems and the study of many-body systems in condensed matter physics, including the quantum Hall effect. The wide range of topics covered in this compendium reflects the breadth of Jürg Fröhlich’s interests, and the last chapters reveal an outlook towards some of his more recent research areas.

From the reviews:

“The present papers are ... labelled as ‘statistical physics’ and range from 1976 to 2008. ... The papers by Jürg Fröhlich offer an excellent opportunity to acquire a global view of certain directions of mathematical physics. ... Fröhlich’s writing should be a valuable guide to the topics treated; he writes detailed and comprehensive reports on his research with numerous references to the literature. ... researchers, deeply dedicated to this field, will be ready to purchase the volume for personal use.” (Stig Stenholm, Contemporary Physics, January, 2010)

“This is a second book in which selected papers by Jürg Fröhlich with different coauthors are collected. ... the present book is composed of papers on statistical physics of many body systems, mainly in equilibrium. ... This book will be very useful and valuable for researchers as well as for students because it has put together and comments important papers by Jürg Fröhlich, who is one of the contemporarily leading experts.” (K.-E. Hellwig, Zentralblatt MATH, Vol. 1169, 2009)