Electronic Cooperation

The goal of the condensed-matter physicist is to understand the electronic, magnetic, and structural properties of matter—a daunting task, given that one 1 cm3 of material contains around 1023 atoms. The standard model for metals, the Landau-Fermi liquid theory, allows the problem to be simplified greatly: Each atom's conduction electrons are free to move around, but instead of having to describe all the interactions separately, Coulomb repulsion between the electrons can be ignored through a process called renormalization. The transport properties of the system can then be effectively described as weak interactions between independent quasiparticles; that is, electrons and holes with a modified mass.