By Monique Combescot and Shine-Yuan Shiau
Oxford University Press
This book deals with two major but different fields of condensed-matter physics, semiconductors and superconductors, starting from the consideration that the key particles of these materials, which are excitons and Cooper pairs, are actually composite bosons. The authors are not interested in describing the physics of these materials, but in better understanding how composite bosons made of two fermions interact and, more specifically, identifying the characteristics of their fermionic components that control many-body effects at a microscopic level.
The many-body physics of elementary fermions and bosons has been largely studied using Green functions and with the help of Feynman diagrams for visualisation. But these tools are not easily applicable to many-body physics of composite bosons made of two fermions. Consequently, a new formalism has been developed and a new type of graphic representation, the “Shiva diagrams” (so named because of the multi-arm structure reminiscent of the Hindu god Shiva) adopted.
After two sections dedicated to the mathematical and physical foundation of Wannier and Frenkel excitons and of Cooper pairs, the book continues with a discussion on composite particles made of excitons. In the fourth and last part, the authors look at some aspects of the condensation of composite bosons, which they call “bosonic condensation”, and which is different from the Bose–Einstein condensation of free elementary bosons. Other important issues are discussed, such as the application of the Pauli exclusion principle on the fermionic components of bosonic particles.
Although suitable for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in physics without a specific background, this text will also appeal to researchers in condensed-matter physics who are willing to obtain insight into the many-body physics of two composite bosons.
