Anderson and Line Shape Analysis
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We present here an overview of Late P. W. Anderson’s doctoral thesis on Spectral Line shapes in the backdrop of his very intimate relation with the physics community of Japan— in particular, R. Kubo.
1. Introduction In P. W. Anderson’s passing, we have lost a colossus of modern solid-state physics. Some colleagues who had known him personally and have worked with him, have written extensively on Anderson’s long-lasting and insightful contributions to manyelectron quantum solids [1]. I did not either collaborate with or know him from close quarters but curiously enough my own doctoral work was an extension of Anderson’s PhD thesis at Harvard University in the late 1940s, done under the tutelage of J. H. Van Vleck, with whom he shared the Nobel Prize in 1977. As it turns out, this thesis topic of Anderson’s is perhaps not as widely known as his other deep forays into magnetism, in particular anti-ferromagnetism, broken symmetry and superconductivity, resonance valence bonds, localization, etc. What I am referring to is the theory of spectral line shapes about which Anderson had written [2]: “My interest in detailed relaxation and spectral problems....... led eventually to localization and in magnetism, to super-exchange”. He went on to say: “In hindsight it was a beautifully chosen topic, at least for a good student. Wartime electronics had made available all kinds of microwave electronics gear and immediately pre-war and during the war a number of people, Van among them, had pointed out a very rich variety of fundamental molecular spectroscopy which could be done with this gear”. It is this topic that I want to write briefly ∗
Sushanta Dattagupta, having spent more than forty years in teaching, research and administration in various institutions and universities across India, is now a senior scientist of the Indian National Science Academy. He has written extensively, in journals and books, on topics of condensed matter, non-equilibrium phenomena, and more recently Tagore Model of education. His current physics interests are in quantum dissipation and stochastic thermodynamics of nanoscopic systems.
Keywords Solid state physics, magnetism, spectral line shapes, the Kuboconnection.
Vol.25, No.8, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12045-020-1027-6
RESONANCE | August 2020
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Figure 1. L. R. Walter, S. Geshwind, P. W. Anderson, A. Clogston, and R. Kubo (from left to right). (Photo credit: Professor H. Fukuyama, Tokyo University of Science)
about.
Whatever lucky stars I may have had the fortune to walk under, surely one of the most important was the one which led Ryogo Kubo and me to meet. – P. W. Anderson
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But before I do that, it is of significance to mention another giant of line shape theory and magnetism: Ryogo Kubo who, apart from Van Vleck, had greatly influenced Anderson in his formative years. Kubo persuaded him to come to Tokyo University during 1953–54 on a Fulbright lectureship and formed a close bond which led PWA to write: “Whatever lucky stars I may have had the fortune to walk under, surely one of
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