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I plan to take four courses in Utokyo in this Spring semester.

1. Theory of Elementary Particles lectured by Prof. Kentaro Hori. This is the third Quantum Field Theory (QFT) course of Utokyo QFT course series. It deals with topics like Yang-Mills action, BRST quantization, renormalization, renormalization group (beta-function), anomalies, theta angle, instantons, etc. The contents of this course are maybe similar to Part III in Srednichi’s QFT textbook.
2. Statistical Physics by Prof. Masaki Oshikawa. This course mainly talk about quantum many-body problem in 1+1 dimensions. Keywords include quantum many-body systems, bosonization, conformal field theory, Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid. I believe this course is a very good supplement for Shankar’s QFT textbook.
3. Statistical Mechanics I by Prof. Hirokazu Tsunetsugu. It talks about critical phenomena, phase transition, scaling theory and renormalization group. I guess it is similar to Kardar’s 8.334, Statistical Physics for Fields, but from another perspective.
4. Computational Science for Many-Body Problems by Prof. Youhei Yamaji and Tsuyoshi Okubo. It talks about using computational method to attack classical and quantum many-body problems. This course has a public web on GitHub.

1. Quantum Field Theory and Condensed Matter, An Introduction by Shankar. As its name suggests, Shankar focuses the applications of QFT in condensed matter physics, rather than high-energy physics. However, in chapter 14 of this book, Shankar makes a detailed and nice comparison between two views of renormalization, one view for critical phenomena in condensed matter and the other for techniques to get rid of the infinities in high-energy physics. Other parts talk about several techniques through examples like Ising, gauge-Ising, XY model, Fermi liquid theory. It also talks about fairly advanced techniques like bosonization, Bohm-Pines and Chern-Simons theories. I like this book very much because it answers many questions that have confused me all the time: how a statistical mechanics can be related to a quantum problem in one dimension lower, how the interactions in 2D classical Ising model becomes free theory when we use fermion description. Together with Kardar’s Statistical Physics for Field, it provides a nice and complete physical picture for many condensed matter problems. [finished chapter 1 – 15 on May 18, 2020]
2.  A video lecture series on condensed matter physics recorded in 2015/2016 PSI program. I regard it as a supplement material for Shankar’s book. This course talks about magnetic system, basic formulations for quantum many-body system which follows Orland and Negele’s book closely, etc. [finished all lecture videos on May 19, 2020]
3. Quantum Field Theory by Srednicki. I plan to read this book with one of my friends. The path is roughly 20 pages one week. Hopefully we could finish the whole book by the end of this year.
4. Algorithms, Part I on Coursera provided by Princeton. This looks like a very interesting course. [abandoned, simply due to lack of time]
5. The second course of  École Polytechnique’s quantum optic series, Quantum Optics – Two Photons and more.
6. Big yellow book on conformal field theory and a video lecture series in 2014/2015 PSI program.
7. For computational side, I plan to read books like Numerical Methods that Work  by Acton, and Computational Physics by Mark Newman. Also, a MIT/OCW course by Prof. Strang called Computational Science and Engineering I and II. It looks like a good extension for the lecture by Prof. Yamaji and Okubo in Utokyo.
8. Some more on condensed matter theory. Condensed Matter Field Theory by Altland and Simons. Also, choose one book on some specific topic like magnetic or superconductivity and superfluidity, like this one. Other books in mind are a recent book focused on solid state physics called Solid State Physics by David W. Snoke, and also a book focused on soft matter called Principles of Condensed Matter Physics.
9. More on classical physics: Modern Classical Physics: Optics, Fluids, Plasmas, Elasticity, Relativity, and Statistical Physics by Kip S. Thorne and Roger D. Blandford, and Jackson’s Classical Electrodynamics.
10. On General relativity.  Two books: Zee’s and classical MTW’s Gravitation.

The above list is already too much for a year. We’ll see how much I can finish.

About my research topic, I plan to spend at least 6 hours every day on it. And the plan is to finish the 2D case before June and then move on to 3D case. Also, I should start to look at the loop optimization problem Prof. Kawashima told me a month ago.