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Statistical physics examines the collective properties of large ensembles of particles, and is a powerful theoretical tool with important applications across many different scientific disciplines. This book provides a detailed introduction to classical and quantum statistical physics, including links to topics at the frontiers of current research. The first part of the book introduces classical ensembles, provides an extensive review of quantum mechanics, and explains how their combination leads directly to the theory of Bose and Fermi gases. This allows a detailed analysis of the quantum properties of matter, and introduces the exotic features of vacuum fluctuations. The second part discusses more advanced topics such as the two-dimensional Ising model and quantum spin chains. This modern text is ideal for advanced undergraduate and graduate students interested in the role of statistical physics in current research. 140 homework problems reinforce key concepts and further develop readers' understanding of the subject.
Complex networks are typically not homogeneous, as they tend to display an array of structures at different scales. A feature that has attracted a lot of research is their modular organisation, i.e., networks may often be considered as being composed of certain building blocks, or modules. In this Element, the authors discuss a number of ways in which this idea of modularity can be conceptualised, focusing specifically on the interplay between modular network structure and dynamics taking place on a network. They discuss, in particular, how modular structure and symmetries may impact on network dynamics and, vice versa, how observations of such dynamics may be used to infer the modular structure. They also revisit several other notions of modularity that have been proposed for complex networks and show how these can be related to and interpreted from the point of view of dynamical processes on networks.
In many systems consisting of interacting subsystems, the complex interactions between elements can be represented using multilayer networks. However percolation, key to understanding connectivity and robustness, is not trivially generalised to multiple layers. This Element describes a generalisation of percolation to multilayer networks: weak multiplex percolation. A node belongs to a connected component if at least one of its neighbours in each layer is in this component. The authors fully describe the critical phenomena of this process. In two layers with finite second moments of the degree distributions the authors observe an unusual continuous transition with quadratic growth above the threshold. When the second moments diverge, the singularity is determined by the asymptotics of the degree distributions, creating a rich set of critical behaviours. In three or more layers the authors find a discontinuous hybrid transition which persists even in highly heterogeneous degree distributions, becoming continuous only when the powerlaw exponent reaches $1+1/(M-1)$ for $M$ layers.
Real networks comprise from hundreds to millions of interacting elements and permeate all contexts, from technology to biology to society. All of them display non-trivial connectivity patterns, including the small-world phenomenon, making nodes to be separated by a small number of intermediate links. As a consequence, networks present an apparent lack of metric structure and are difficult to map. Yet, many networks have a hidden geometry that enables meaningful maps in the two-dimensional hyperbolic plane. The discovery of such hidden geometry and the understanding of its role have become fundamental questions in network science giving rise to the field of network geometry. This Element reviews fundamental models and methods for the geometric description of real networks with a focus on applications of real network maps, including decentralized routing protocols, geometric community detection, and the self-similar multiscale unfolding of networks by geometric renormalization.
Dealing with all aspects of Monte Carlo simulation of complex physical systems encountered in condensed matter physics and statistical mechanics, this book provides an introduction to computer simulations in physics. The 5th edition contains extensive new material describing numerous powerful algorithms and methods that represent recent developments in the field. New topics such as active matter and machine learning are also introduced. Throughout, there are many applications, examples, recipes, case studies, and exercises to help the reader fully comprehend the material. This book is ideal for graduate students and researchers, both in academia and industry, who want to learn techniques that have become a third tool of physical science, complementing experiment and analytical theory.
Higher-order networks describe the many-body interactions of a large variety of complex systems, ranging from the the brain to collaboration networks. Simplicial complexes are generalized network structures which allow us to capture the combinatorial properties, the topology and the geometry of higher-order networks. Having been used extensively in quantum gravity to describe discrete or discretized space-time, simplicial complexes have only recently started becoming the representation of choice for capturing the underlying network topology and geometry of complex systems. This Element provides an in-depth introduction to the very hot topic of network theory, covering a wide range of subjects ranging from emergent hyperbolic geometry and topological data analysis to higher-order dynamics. This Elements aims to demonstrate that simplicial complexes provide a very general mathematical framework to reveal how higher-order dynamics depends on simplicial network topology and geometry.