Quantum Field theory vs. many-body Quantum Mechanics

In summary: Of particles? Of fields? The answer is not clear, and I think it's not clear because no one ever tried to make it clear. We need to do it ourselves. So if someone is interested in this question, it's a good research project.
  • #36
Demystifier said:
Some effects may be described by topological effective field theory, in which case it may not have quasiparticle excitations.
Can you give an example please ? I'm interested in all the cases in which the effective theory doesn't have quasiparticles.
 
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  • #37
Fractal matter said:
Can you give an example please ? I'm interested in all the cases in which the effective theory doesn't have quasiparticles.
All topological field theories lack propagating degrees of freedom and hence (quasi)particles. An example of topological field theory is Chern-Simons theory. In condensed matter, it plays a role in a description of quantum Hall effect (see e.g. https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.06687). Roughly speaking, in the quantum Hall effect the EM field interacts with matter in such a way that the effective dressed EM field cannot propagate through the material, so the dressed EM field does not have dressed photon excitations.
 
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