Publisher's Synopsis
The first volume of a two-volumed work which provides a comprehensive study of the statistical mechanics of lattice models, and will bring readers with a knowledge of elementary statistical mechanics up to at least the borderline of present-day research areas.;The term "co-operative" is used for physical phenomena which depend essentially on the interaction between atoms and molecules, many of which are associated with crystal lattices and can be treated theoretically using lattice models. This first volume covers some main areas of theoretical attack, exact solutions, mean-field and cluster variation approximations, and the resulting phase patterns and critical or multicritical phenomena. Physical applications are emphasized throughout and examples are provided at the end of each chapter.;The text incorporates much work previously only available in research journals.
