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Possible duplicate:
Books for Condensed Matter Physics

I'm looking to learn more about cutting edge research in condensed matter theory.

I hope you'll help me find some recommended articles in the (admittedly very broad) subject.

I have a background in mathematics and quantum field theory, so I want to find articles which are at a high level but do not assume too much condensed matter jargon and are very explicit in their derivations.

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Ryan Thorngren
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    See http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/22046, or search for "[books] condensed matter" – John Rennie Jul 31 '12 at 05:32
  • possible duplicate of Books for Condensed Matter Physics – John Rennie Jul 31 '12 at 05:32
  • I'm not sure this is really a duplicate, since it's asking about research papers rather than textbooks, but even if not, it's a list question, which is not the sort of thing we support here. – David Z Jul 31 '12 at 08:01
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    I definitely was not looking for books. How is this question a "list question" while the condensed matter book question is not? Closed this thread while leaving the other open is plainly contradictory. – Ryan Thorngren Jul 31 '12 at 10:42
  • This question should not have been closed, as the OP said in the comments he was not looking for books but for introductary (maybe pedagogical, such as TASI lecture, arxiv articles) about the subject. So it is neither a duplicate of the condensed matter book question, nor off topic. So, can this question be reopend? – Dilaton Mar 07 '13 at 23:32
  • For the record, user404153 is right that the CM book question is also a list question. That other one is just a specific exception that we allow for now. Also, @Dilaton, "book" recommendations incorporate all sorts of pedagogical or general resources. They don't have to literally be books. So the other question (and eventually the tag wiki) will be the place to contribute any answers to this. – David Z Mar 08 '13 at 00:13
  • @DavidZaslavsky But he is interested in cutting edge research in condensed matter, should information about cutting edge research of a topic now be hidden in the tagwiki too? I explicitely say hidding the information, because the tagwikis are certainly not the obvious place where one would look for information about cutting edge research. – Dilaton Mar 08 '13 at 00:16
  • @Dilaton oh, right. So this is not quite the same sort of information we are planning to put in the tag wikis. (Of course it could go there, in addition to the information about introductory books.) But it is still definitely a list question. – David Z Mar 08 '13 at 00:24
  • @DavidZaslavsky I thought reference requests are allowd. He would probably be satisfied with TASI lectures / lecture notes of a recent summer school, or something like that which can be found on the arxiv. Are hints and links to arxiv lecture notes on such courses / summerschools / etc really only allowed to exist on tagwikis? I thought a wiki is something more static and therefore less adequate to contain material about recent cutting edge courses for example? – Dilaton Mar 08 '13 at 00:28
  • @DavidZaslavsky I think the interpretation of the question depends on the specific reader. I think it is no longer necessarily a list question after the edit, as I said a link to the notes of a single good course are probably enough for the OP to accept it, but you obviously still interpret it as a list. Could we draw in some third, fourth, etc opinion on this? – Dilaton Mar 08 '13 at 00:32
  • @DavidZaslavsky I mean would it be that bad, if the question would attract say about three answers of people, who give links and explain their favorate material they found most useful? – Dilaton Mar 08 '13 at 00:40
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    The problem is that condensed matter is an absolutely gigantic field, and the "cutting edge" research cuts way too many edges for any finite list to be useful to anyone. For what it's worth, an (already extremely outdated!) general overview of the kinds of things CM folks care about can be found here: http://web.mit.edu/redingtn/www/netadv/biblio2.html – wsc Mar 08 '13 at 00:46
  • @Dilaton yes, reference requests are allowed, but reference requests are very specific and have a finite and fixed set of possible answers. This is not a reference request. Even after the edit, it is a near-textbook example of an open-ended list question. – David Z Mar 08 '13 at 00:50
  • @DavidZaslavsky Ok, I think the last sentence is not needed to define the kind and topic of references he is interested in. But it can be interpreted as an invitation to build up a list. So I suggested to edit this out too, and without the last sentence the question would really look like an ordinaty reference request to me ... – Dilaton Mar 08 '13 at 00:57
  • @Dilaton sure, the last sentence can go, but it doesn't change anything. It's still a list question. There's no way to change that without completely changing what the question is asking. – David Z Mar 08 '13 at 00:59
  • @DavidZaslavsky I do not understand why you still interpret it as a list question. Can you explain this a bit? I mean, if I do not completely misunderstand everything, certainly not every question that could attract more than one answers is a list question by definition ...? – Dilaton Mar 08 '13 at 01:03
  • @Dilaton I can't give an exact explicit definition off the top of my head, but here are some characteristics: this question is highly open-ended, with a nearly unbounded set of possible answers. It provides no basis for evaluating the relative merits of different answers. With non-list questions, even though there can be multiple answers, they're usually different ways of explaining the same one or two or three underlying concepts; that's not the case here. (I'm surprised the system hasn't offered to move us to a chat room yet...) – David Z Mar 08 '13 at 01:12
  • It happens for conceptual topics in physics too, that there exist multiple different points of view which complement one another, I think for example about different methods of quantization (path integral, canonical quantization), etc – Dilaton Mar 08 '13 at 01:12
  • @DavidZaslavsky But with your definition of a list question, no reference request questions would be allowed either since even to a quite narrow topic, more than one good paper can exist (am I correct in thinking to remember that you do not like reference requests either?). I am not sure if all of the other moderators apply the same definition of what makes up a list question, in particular if this question still is one. So it would be fair, if you could ask them too, what they think about it. I have to stop the chat here now, since it is way too late (or better early) for me now. – Dilaton Mar 08 '13 at 01:20
  • @Dilaton the problem is not with there being more than one answer, the problem is with there being an unbounded set of answers. Reference requests are fine because they are looking for either one particular paper or one of a very small, bounded set of particular papers (or books, or whatever). This definition of list questions comes from all across the SE network, by the way. It's part of the core philosophy of Stack Exchange. Anyway, we can continue this sometime later in [chat] if you like. After a little while I'll delete the comment discussion here. – David Z Mar 08 '13 at 01:28
  • @DavidZaslavsky Ok to continue in chat. But when deleting the comments, please be careful to not delete the comment with the useful link by wsc the OP liked and appreciated too, along with the off topic discussion. Good night now ... – Dilaton Mar 08 '13 at 01:34

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