Statistical Field Theory

A comprehensive and timely survey of the application of the methods of quantum field theory to statistical physics a very active and fruitful area of modern research is provided in two volumes. The first volume provides a pedagogical introduction to the subject discussing Brownian motion its anticommutative counterpart in the guise of Onsager''s solution to the two-dimensional Ising model the mean field or Landau approximation scaling ideas exemplified by the Kosterlitz-Thouless theory for the XY transition the continuous renormalization group applied to the standard phi-to-the-fourth theory (the simplest typical case) and lattice gauge theory as a pathway to the understanding of quark confinement in quantum chromodynamics.