Mir Books

We come to Quasi Particles by M. I. Kaganov and I. M. Lifshits. A wonderful little book on solid state physics. The back cover says:

This book, “Quasiparticles (Ideas and principles of solid state quantum physics)“, was written by two outstanding specialists in the solid state quantum theory. The book is meant for a broad circle of readers. It contains no complicated mathematical formulas, nor derivations of them. The authors base the presentation on analogies, assuming their readers to possess certain degree of intuition in the field of physics. The book tells how atomic particles move inside solids, what is meant by the term “thermal motion”, and how the characteristics of motion of atomic particles are revealed in the macroscopic properties of solids.

And the foreword says:

A number of approaches can be chosen to describe the state-of-the-arts in a sufficiently mature field of science. The choice lies with the author, and reflects his tastes, habits, and experience. This book is our attempt to present the basic concepts (or those we regard as basic) of the quantum theory of solid state, paying maximum attention to answering the question that we selected as a heading for the first chapter, viz. “What Are the Components of .. ?”, A favourite image the authors had invariably kept in mind was: an inquisitive boy is dismantling a toy car trying to understand what its parts are; he holds the car’s skeleton in his hand, and bolts and wheels are in a pile on the floor. It was not, however, our intent to reassemble the “car” after its structure has been analyzed, and to give a detailed account of· its functioning. The reader, we assume, had met with the “functioning” of solid state devices more than once; the properties of such devices make the subject of many an excellent book.

The book was translated from the Russian by V. Kissin and was first published by Mir in 1979.

The Internet Archive Link

and here

The table of contents is as under.

Foreword 5
What are the components of … ? 7
Photons 11
Bosons and fermions 14
Quantum statistics 15
Gas of fermions (Fermi-Dirac degeneration) 18
Gas of bosons (Bose-Einstein degeneration) 20
Energy spectrum 22
Phonons 25
Phonons in helium 32
Magnons, etc. 35
Electrons. Energy bands 37
p-Space 39
Metals (conductors), insulators,
semiconductors, and semimetals 41
Electrons and holes 46
Landau Fermi liquid 49
More on electrons and holes 52
Waves in electron gas- 53
Excitons 55
Polarons, Fluctuons, etc. 56
Half-way finish 59
Colliding quasiparticles 61
Additional complications 6S
Digression on phase transitions 73
Quantum crystals. Quantum diffusion. Vacancions 79
Undamped macroscopic motions 87
Concluding remarks.
Solid state physics and molecular biology 93