The quasiparticle model, based on quark and gluon degrees of freedom, has been developed for the description of the thermodynamics of a hot plasma of strongly interacting matter which is of enormous relevance in astrophysics, cosmology and for relativistic heavy-ion collisions as well. In the present work, this phenomenological model is extended into the realm of imaginary chemical potential and towards including, in general, different and independent quark flavour chemical potentials. In this way, nonzero net baryon-density effects in the equation of state are self-consistently attainable. Furthermore, a chain of approximations based on formal mathematical manipulations is presented which outlines the connection of the quasiparticle model with the underlying gauge field theory of strong interactions, QCD, putting the model on firmer ground. A comparison of quasiparticle model results with available lattice QCD data for, e. g., basic bulk thermodynamic quantities and various susceptibilities such as diagonal and off-diagonal susceptibilities, which provide a rich and sensitive testing ground, is found to be successful. Furthermore, different thermodynamic quantities and the phase diagram for imaginary chemical potential are faithfully described. Thus, the applicability of the model to extrapolate the equation of state known from lattice QCD at zero baryon density to nonzero baryon densities is shown. In addition, the ability of the model to extrapolate results to the chiral limit and to asymptotically large temperatures is illustrated by confrontation with available first-principle lattice QCD results. These extrapolations demonstrate the predictive power of the model. Basing on these successful comparisons supporting the idea that the hot deconfined phase can be described in a consistent picture by dressed quark and gluon degrees of freedom, a reliable QCD equation of state is constructed and baryon-density effects are examined, also along isentropic evolutionary paths. Scaling properties of the equation of state with fundamental QCD parameters such as the number of active quark flavour degrees of freedom, the entering quark mass parameters or the numerical value of the deconfinement transition temperature are discussed, and the robustness of the equation of state in the regions of small and large energy densities is shown. Uncertainties arising in the transition region are taken into account by constructing a family of equations of state whose members differ from each other in the specific interpolation prescription between large energy density region and a realistic hadron resonance gas equation of state at low energy densities. The obtained family of equations of state is applied in hydrodynamic simulations, and the implications of variations in the transition region are discussed by considering transverse momentum spectra and differential elliptic flow of directly emitted hadrons, in particular of strange baryons, for both, RHIC top energy and LHC conditions. Finally, with regard to FAIR physics, implications of the possible presence of a QCD critical point on the equation of state are outlined both, in an exemplary toy model and for an extended quasiparticle model.

Phonons and electrons are two types of excitations which are responsible for many properties of condensed matter materials. The interaction between them plays an important role in condensed matter physics. In this thesis we present some theoretical investigations of the effects due to the interactions between phonons and electrons interactions. We show evidence that a structural martensitic transition is related to significant changes in the electronic structure, as revealed in thermodynamic measurements made in high magnetic fields. The effect of the magnetic field is considered unusual, as many influential investigations of martensitic transitions have emphasized that the structural transitions are primarily lattice dynamical and are driven by the entropy due to the phonons. We provide a theoretical frame-work which can be used to describe the effect of a magnetic field on the lattice dynamics in which the field dependence originates from the dielectric constant. The temperature-dependence of the phonon spectrum of alpha-uranium has recently been measured by Manley et al. using inelastic neutron scattering and x-ray scattering techniques. Although there is scant evidence of anharmonic interactions, the phonons were reported to show some softening of the optic modes at the zone boundary. The same group of authors later reported that an extra vibrational mode was observed to form at a temperature above 450 K. The existence of the proposed new mode is inconsistent with the usual theory of harmonic phonons, as applied to a structure composed of a monoclinic Bravais lattice with a two-atom basis. We investigate the effect that the f electron-phonon interaction has on the phonon spectrum and its role on the possible formation of a breathing mode of mixed electronic and phonon character. We examine the model by using Green’s function techniques to obtain the phonon spectral density. Some materials undergo phase transitions from a high temperature state with periodic translational invariance to a state in which the electronic charge density is modulated periodically. The wave vector of the modulation may be either commensurate or incommensurate with the reciprocal lattice vectors of the high temperature structure. In the case of an incommensurate charge density wave, the system supports phason excitation. For an incommensurate state, the new ground state has a lower symmetry than the high temperature state since the charge density does not have long-ranged periodic translational order. If the metal is ideal (with no impurities), a charge density wave should be able to slide throughout the crystal without resistance, resulting in current flow similar to that of a superconductor. The phason is an excitation of the charge density wave which is related to the collective motion of electrons. We estimate the phason density of states, and the phason contribution to the specific heat. Angle-resolved photoemission experiments have been performed on USb2, and very narrow quasiparticle peaks have been observed in a band which local spin-density approximation (LSDA) predicts to osculate the Fermi energy. The observed band is found to be depressed by 17 meV below the Fermi energy. The experimentally observed quasiparticle dispersion relation for this band exhibits a kink at an energy of about 23 meV below the Fermi energy. The kink is not found in LSDA calculations and, therefore, is attributable to a change in the quasiparticle mass renormalization by a factor of approximately 2. The existence of a kink in the quasiparticle dispersion relation of a band which does not cross the Fermi energy is unprecedented. The kink in the quasiparticle dispersion relation is attributed to the effect of the interband self-energy involving transitions from the osculating band into a band that does cross the Fermi energy. / Physics

The Casimir interaction is the fundamental physical phenomenon which emerges due to modification of vacuum fluctuations by boundaries in a confined area of space. It arises in many fields of physics, including condensed matter. Recently, substantial interest in the Casimir effect has revived as a result of the significant progress in the experimental techniques in cold atoms. In this thesis, we develop the description of the phonon-mediated Casimir interaction taking into account multiple phonon-impurity scatterings, that strongly renormalize the resulting interaction between the impurities. Our results, formulated in terms of the T-matrix formalism, generalize previous studies of the Casimir interaction between different kind of impurities and allow estimation of the expected phonon-induced Casimir interaction in various systems. Further, we consider a propagation of a singe hole in a two-dimensional ferromagnet accompanied by spin-flip processes. We show that an external magnetic field can be used to manipulate the properties of the single-layer system. For easy plain ferromagnets, at saturation value of the external field perpendicular to the easy axis, the Green’s function demonstrates the branch cut behavior. It is contrasted to the systems of an itinerant quasiparticle in the antiferromagnetic background where the quasiparticle retains the finite quasiparticle weight. The considered magnon scattering processes on a single itinerant electron (hole) in a two-dimensional ferromagnet can be used further for the magnon-mediated Casimir interaction in quasi-two-dimensional ferromagnets.

A thermodynamic model of the quark-gluon plasma using quasiparticle degrees of freedom based on the hard thermal loop self-energies is introduced. It provides a connection between an established phenomenological quasiparticle model – following from the former using a series of approximations – and QCD – from which the former is derived using the Cornwall-Jackiw-Tomboulis formalism and a special parametrization of the running coupling. Both models allow for an extrapolation of first-principle QCD results available at small chemical potentials using Monte-Carlo methods on the lattice to large net baryon densities with remarkably similar results. They are used to construct equations of state for heavy-ion collider experiments at SPS and FAIR as well as quark and neutron star interiors. A mixed-phase construction allows for a connection of the SPS equation of state to the hadron resonance gas. An extension to the weak sector is presented as well as general stability and binding arguments for compact stellar objects are developed. From the extrapolation of the most recent lattice results [Baz09, Bor10b] the existence of bound pure quark stars is not suggested. However, quark matter might exist in a hybrid phase in cores of neutron stars.

No description available.

We investigate the manifestation of strong electronic correlations in the quasiparticle interference (QPI), arising from the scattering of conduction electrons from defects and impurities in an otherwise translationally-invariant host. The QPI may be measured experimentally as the Fourier transform of the spatial modulations in the host surface density of states that result, which are mapped using a scanning tunnelling microscope. We calculate the QPI for a range of physically relevant models, demonstrating the effect of strong local electronic correlations arising in systems of magnetic impurities adsorbed on the surface of non-interacting host systems. In the first instance the effect of these magnetic impurities is modelled via the single Anderson impurity model, treated via numerical renormalization group (NRG) calculations. The scattering of conduction electrons, and hence the QPI, demonstrate an array of characteristic signatures of the many-body state formed by the impurity, for example due to the Kondo effect. The effect of multiple impurities on the QPI is also investigated, with a numerically-exact treatment of the system of two Anderson impurities via state-of-the-art NRG calculations. Inter-impurity interactions are found to result in additional scattering channels and additional features in the QPI. The QPI is then investigated for the layered transition metal oxide Sr2RuO4, for which strong interactions in the host conduction electrons give rise to an unconventional triplet superconducting state at T_c ∼ 1.5K. The detailed mechanism for this superconductivity is still unknown, but electron-electron or electron-phonon interactions are believed to play a central role. We simulate the QPI in Sr₂RuO₄, employing an effective parametrized model consisting of three conduction bands derived from the Ru 4d t2g orbitals that takes into account spin orbit coupling and the anisotropy of the Ru t2g orbitals. Signatures of such interactions in the normal state are investigated by comparing these model calculations to experimental results. We also calculate the QPI in the superconducting state, and propose how experimental measurements may provide direct evidence of the anisotropy and symmetry of the superconducting gap, and thus offer insight into the pairing mechanism and the superconducting state.

No description available.