Models of Quantum Matter

An important task of theoretical quantum physics is the building of idealized mathematical models to describe the properties of quantum matter. This text is an introduction to the Bethe ansatz method. It introduces the physical concepts (e.g. the Fermi and Luttinger liquid and quantum phase transitions) and mathematical tools (e.g. many-particle Hilbert spaces and second quantization) needed to construct realistic models from a variety of fields of physics,especially condensed matter physics and quantum optics. The various forms of the Bethe ansatz - algebraic, coordinate, multicomponent, and thermodynamic Bethe ansatz, and Bethe ansatz for finite systems -are then explained in depth and employed to find exact solutions for the physical properties of the integrable forms of these strongly interacting quantum models.