Talk:Phy5670

Collective Modes

Sound waves propagating through air or water are examples for collective modes. Such modes arise without broken symmetry of the system as ordinary gases and fluids don't brake any symmetry. Such waves have wavelengths that are very large compared to the distance between neighboring particles, which is the reason why we will look at very small wave vectors. An example for a collective mode in due to broken symmetry is a shear mode in a solid.

One can think of collective modes as the