Bøger i Lecture Notes in Physics serien

By bringing together various ideas and methods for extracting the slow manifolds, the authors show that it is possible to establish a more macroscopic description in nonequilibrium systems. The book treats slowness as stability. A unifying geometrical viewpoint of the thermodynamics of slow and fast motion enables the development of reduction techniques, both analytical and numerical. Examples considered in the book range from the Boltzmann kinetic equation and hydrodynamics to the Fokker-Planck equations of polymer dynamics and models of chemical kinetics describing oxidation reactions. Special chapters are devoted to model reduction in classical statistical dynamics, natural selection, and exact solutions for slow hydrodynamic manifolds. The book will be a major reference source for both theoretical and applied model reduction. Intended primarily as a postgraduate-level text in nonequilibrium kinetics and model reduction, it will also be valuable to PhD students and researchers in applied mathematics, physics and various fields of engineering.

The theory of stochastic processes originally grew out of efforts to describe Brownian motion quantitatively. Today it provides a huge arsenal of methods suitable for analyzing the influence of noise on a wide range of systems. The credit for acquiring all the deep insights and powerful methods is due ma- ly to a handful of physicists and mathematicians: Einstein, Smoluchowski, Langevin, Wiener, Stratonovich, etc. Hence it is no surprise that until - cently the bulk of basic and applied stochastic research was devoted to purely mathematical and physical questions. However, in the last decade we have witnessed an enormous growth of results achieved in other sciences - especially chemistry and biology - based on applying methods of stochastic processes. One reason for this stochastics boom may be that the realization that noise plays a constructive rather than the expected deteriorating role has spread to communities beyond physics. Besides their aesthetic appeal these noise-induced, noise-supported or noise-enhanced effects sometimes offer an explanation for so far open pr- lems (information transmission in the nervous system and information p- cessing in the brain, processes at the cell level, enzymatic reactions, etc.). They may also pave the way to novel technological applications (noise-- hanced reaction rates, noise-induced transport and separation on the na- scale, etc.). Key words to be mentioned in this context are stochastic r- onance, Brownian motors or ratchets, and noise-supported phenomena in excitable systems.

Quantum dots, often denoted artificial atoms, are the exquisite tools by which quantum behavior can be probed on a scale appreciably larger than the atomic scale, that is on the nanometer scale. In this way, the physics of the devices is closer to classical physics than that of atomic physics but they are still sufficiently small to clearly exhibit quantum phenomena. The present volume is devoted to an introduction to some of these fascinating aspects, addressing in particular graduate students and young researchers in the field. In the first lecture by R. Shankar, the general theoretical aspects of Fermi liquids are addressed, in particular the renormalization group approach. This is then aptly applied to large quantum dots. A completely different approach is encountered in the second contribution by J.M. Elzerman et al., in that it is a thorough experimental expose of what can be done or expected in the study of small quantum dots. Here the emphasis lies on the electron spin to be used as a qubit. In the third lecture series by M. Pustilnik and Leonid I. Glazman, mechanisms of low-temperature electronic transport through a quantum dot ¿ weakly coupled to two conducting leads ¿ are reviewed. The fourth series of lectures, by C.W.J. Beenakker, deals with a very interesting aspect of nanophysics: a peculiar property of superconducting mirrors discovered by Andreev about forty years ago and still a challenge to experimental physicists.

Properties of systems with long range interactions are still poorly understood despite being of importance in most areas of physics. The present volume introduces and reviews the effort of constructing a coherent thermodynamic treatment of such systems by combining tools from statistical mechanics with concepts and methods from dynamical systems. Analogies and differences between various systems are examined by considering a large range of applications, with emphasis on Bose--Einstein condensates. Written as a set of tutorial reviews, the book will be useful for both the experienced researcher as well as the nonexpert scientist or postgraduate student.

The contributions to this volume are based on selected lectures from the first international workshop on decoherence, information, complexity and entropy (DICE). The aim of this volume is to reflect the growing importance ot common concepts behind seemingly different fields such as quantum mechanics, general relativity and statistical physics in a form accessible to nonspecialist researchers. Many presentations include original results which are published here for the first time.

More than half of all stars in the universe formed and evolved as binary systems and their study is essential for understanding stellar and galactic evolution. The six lectures in this book give both a readable introduction and an up-to-date review of nearly all aspects of  research into binary stars, including the range from common binaries to more exotic systems composed of white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes.

In this book the process of decoherence is reviewed from both the theoretical and the experimental physicist's point of view. Implications of this important concept for fundamental problems of quantum theory and for chemistry and biology are also given. This broad review of decoherence addresses researchers and graduate students. It could also be used in seminar work.

In the last two decades extraordinary progress in the experimental handling of single quantum objects has spurred theoretical research into investigating the coupling between quantum systems and their environment. Decoherence, the gradual deterioration of entanglement due to dissipation and noise fed to the system by the environment, has emerged as a central concept. The present set of lectures is intended as a high-level, but self-contained, introduction into the fields of quantum noise and dissipation.In particular their influence on decoherence and applications pertaining to quantum information and quantum communication are studied, leading the nonspecialist researchers and the advanced students gradually to the forefront of research.

Quantum information science is a rapidly developing field that not only promises a revolution in computer sciences but also touches deeply the very foundations of quantum physics. This book consists of a set of lectures by leading experts in the field that bridges the gap between standard textbook material and the research literature, thus providing the ne- cessary background for postgraduate students and non-specialist researchers wishing to familiarize themselves with the subject thoroughly and at a high level. This volume is ideally suited as a course book for postgraduate students, and lecturers will find in it a large choice of material for bringing their courses up to date.

Neutron spin echo (NSE) spectroscopy is the highest energy resolution neutron scattering technique available for examining a large area (in time and space) in condensed matter physics. This broad dynamic and spatial range is extensively exploited in the study of a wide range of scientific problems ranging from the dynamics of glasses, polymer melts, complex fluids and microemulsions to the elementary excitations in superfluid 4He and to ferromagnets and spin glasses. This book reviews the current status and future prospects in NSE spectroscopy describing the method, latest instrumentation and also the use of NSE in fundamental, hard- and soft-matter science. It provides first-hand information for researchers working in the fields touched by NSE. In addition, young researchers, PhD students and graduates interested in the method will obtain a comprehensive overview and guidelines to implementing the NSE technique.