Field Theoretic Approaches to Interacting Particle Systems

Statistical Physics and Complexity Group meeting

Field Theoretic Approaches to Interacting Particle Systems

  • Event time: 11:30am
  • Event date: 7th July 2010
  • Speaker: Alasdair Thomson (University of Edinburgh)
  • Location: Room 2511,

Event details

Field theoretic representations of lattice gases were established in the 1970s following Doi and Peliti. The case with exclusion can be handled in some cases in this formalism. Recently, however, direct approaches based on the work of Martin, Siggia, Rose and others have rendered this task easier. Following a recent review by Lefèvre and Biroli I will show how to construct a path integral for interacting particle systems from purely stochastic considerations and how the resulting field theory can be used to investigate, among other things, the fluctuating hydrodynamics and free energy. Time allowing I will illustrate the technique with examples from both a single species zero-range process and a two-species exclusion process.