Principles of Phase Structures in Particle Physics

10(-10) sec after the big bang, when the universe cooled down to the order of 1015 Kelvin, the electroweak phase transition led to a spontaneous breaking of the symmetry between electromagnetic and weak interactions. 10(-6) sec later, at a temperature of the order of tera degrees, the QCD transition confined the free quarks and gluons to mesons and baryons in the hadronic phase of the present world. This book is about the analytical and numerical methods used to investigate these transitions within the framework of quantum field theory at finite temperature in a continuum formulation and on the lattice. The topics covered include the renormalization group approach in a perturbative and non-perturbative realization, dimensional reduction, asymptotic and convergent expansions in quantities such as strong and weak couplings, high temperatures, and small momenta. One particular case revolves around computer-aided generations of high-order hopping parameter series.