Disoredered Systems and the Functional Renormalization Group: A Pedagogical Introduction


Kay Jörg Wiese
Institute of Theoretical Physics, University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4030, USA

Abstract

In this article, we review basic facts about disordered systems, especially the existence of many metastable states and and the resulting failure of dimensional reduction. Besides techniques based on the Gaussian variational method and replica-symmetry breaking (RSB), the functional renormalization group (FRG) is the only general method capable of attacking strongly disordered systems. We explain the basic ideas of the latter method and why it is difficult to implement. We finally review current progress for elastic manifolds in disorder.


Plenary lecture held at RG-2002
Acta Physica Slovaca 52 (2002) 341 [pdf]



Copyright (C) by Kay Wiese. Last edited March 17, 2008.