Many-Body Green's Functions for Time-Dependent Problems

Intended as a reference manual for graduate students and researchers working in condensed matter physics, this book offers a detailed description of contour Green's functions and their application to many-body and time-dependent problems. It covers the essential theoretical and practical implications using a thorough and self-contained approach.

Quantum many-body systems are a central feature of condensed matter physics, relevant to important, modern research areas such as ultrafast light-matter interactions and quantum information. This book offers detailed coverage of the contour Green's function formalism – an approach that can be successfully applied to solve the quantum many-body and time-dependent problems present within such systems. Divided into three parts, the text provides a structured overview of the relevant theoretical and practical tools, with specific focus on the Schwinger-Keldysh formalism. Part I introduces the mathematical frameworks that make use of Green's functions in normal phase states. Part II covers fermionic superfluid phases with discussion of topics such as the BCS-BEC crossover and superconducting systems. Part III deals with the application of the Schwinger-Keldysh formalism to various topics of experimental interest. Graduate students and researchers will benefit from the book's comprehensive treatment of the subject matter and its novel arrangement of topics.