The accretion process is thought to play a key role in the Universe. This book explains, in a form intelligible to graduate students, its relation to the formation of new stars, to the energy release in compact objects and to the formation of black holes. The monograph describes how accretion processes are related to the presence of jets in stellar objects and active galactic nuclei and to jet formation. The authors treat theoretical work as well as current observational facts. This volume of the highly esteemed Les Houches series is meant as an advanced text that can serve to attract students to exciting new research work in astrophysics.

Networks can provide a useful model and graphic image useful for the description of a wide variety of web-like structures in the physical and man-made realms, e.g. protein networks, food webs and the Internet. The contributions gathered in the present volume provide both an introduction to, and an overview of, the multifaceted phenomenology of complex networks. Statistical Mechanics of Complex Networks also provides a state-of-the-art picture of current theoretical methods and approaches.

Our contemporary understanding of brain function is deeply rooted in the ideas of the nonlinear dynamics of distributed networks. Cognition and motor coordination seem to arise from the interactions of local neuronal networks, which themselves are connected in large scales across the entire brain. The spatial architectures between various scales inevitably influence the dynamics of the brain and thereby its function. But how can we integrate brain connectivity amongst these structural and functional domains? Our Handbook provides an account of the current knowledge on the measurement, analysis and theory of the anatomical and functional connectivity of the brain. All contributors are leading experts in various fields concerning structural and functional brain connectivity. In the first part of the Handbook, the chapters focus on an introduction and discussion of the principles underlying connected neural systems. The second part introduces the currently available non-invasive technologies for measuring structural and functional connectivity in the brain. Part three provides an overview of the analysis techniques currently available and highlights new developments. Part four introduces the application and translation of the concepts of brain connectivity to behavior, cognition and the clinical domain. Written for: Researchers, engineers, graduate students in complexity, applied nonlinear dynamics, neuroscience

In this book the author extends the concepts previously introduced in his "Quantum Field Theory in Condensed Matter Physics" to situations in which the strong electronic correlations are crucial for the understanding of the observed phenomena. Starting from a model field theory to illustrate the basic ideas, more complex systems are analysed in turn. A special chapter is devoted to the description of antiferromagnets, doped Mott insulators and quantum Hall liquids from the point of view of gauge theory. This advanced text is written for graduate students and researchers working in related areas of physics.

We stand at the threshold of an exciting era of Asteroseismology. In a few months' time, the Canadian small-satellite asteroseismology mission MOST will be laun ched. Danish and French missions MONS and COROT should follow, with the ESA mission Eddington following in 2007/8. Helioseismology has proved spec tacularly successful in imaging the internal structure and dynamics of the Sun and probing the physics of the solar interior. Ground-based observations have detected solar-like oscillations on alpha Centauri A and other Sun-like stars, and diagnostics similar to those used in helioseismology are now being used to test and constrain the physics and evolutionary state of these stars. Multi-mode oscillations are being observed in an abundance of other stars, including slowly pulsating B stars (SPB stars), delta Scuti stars, Ap stars and the pulsating white dwarfs. New classes of pulsators continue to be discovered across the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. For good reason it was decided to entitle our conference 'Asteroseismology Across the HR Diagram' . Yet the challenges still to be faced to make asteroseismology across the HR diagram a reality are formidable. Observation, data analysis and theory all pose hard problems to be overcome. In conceiving this meeting, the aim of the organisers was to facilitate a cross-fertilization of ideas and approaches between researchers working on different pulsators and with different areas of expertise. We venture to suggest that in this the conference was a great success."

Gravitational waves were predicted by Einstein over 75 years ago, but have not yet been seen. This book is about the technology of the new generation of interferometric gravitational wave detectors now being built, such as the LIGO (Laser Interferometric Gravitational-Wave Observatory) project in the US. The book aims to make plain how these detectors function, and why it is reasonable to think that gravitational waves may be successfully detected in the next decade.After an introduction to the physical and astronomical aspects of gravitational waves, the book concentrates on explaining the basic principles behind the detectors and discusses the strategies for utilising them. All the required background in astronomy, optics and experimental physics techniques is developed within the text, and anyone with an undergraduate knowledge of physics will be able to follow the arguments presented. The book will be of use not just to physicists and astronomers who wish to acquaint themselves with the subject, but will also prove useful for courses in experimental physics at the advanced undergraduate and graduate levels.

The Second Volume of Equilibrium between Phases of Matter, when compared with the First Volume, by H.A.J. Oonk and M.T. Calvet, published in 2008, amounts to an extension of subjects, and a deepening of understanding. In the first three sections of the text an extension is given of the theory on isobaric binary systems. The fourth section gives an account of the thermodynamic analyses of four isobaric binary key systems, highlighting the power of empirical, (exo)thermodynamic correlations. The fifth section is devoted to the thermodynamic description of ternary systems. The last three sections concentrate on the properties of materials, and the phase behaviour of systems under the conditions of high temperature and high pressure conditions that prevail in the interior of the Earth. A new equation of state is the subject of the sixth section. In the seventh section a move is made to statistical thermodynamics and vibrational models; the description of the systems has changed from mathematical to physical. The last section is on the system MgO SiO2, looked upon from a geophysical point of view.

Throughout the work high priority is given to the thermodynamic assessment of experimental data; numerous end-of-section exercises and their solutions are included. Along with the First Volume, the work is useful for materials scientists and geophysicists as a reference text.

Audience

Volume II is a lecture book for postgraduate students in chemistry, chemical engineering, geology and metallurgy. It is highly useful as a recommended text for teachers and researchers in all fields of materials science.

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The book introduces readers to and summarizes the current ideas and theories about the basic mechanisms for transport in chaotic flows. Typically no single paradigmatic approach exists as this topic is relevant for fields as diverse as plasma physics, geophysical flows and various branches of engineering. Accordingly, the dispersion of matter in chaotic or turbulent flows is analyzed from different perspectives. Partly based on lecture courses given by the author, this book addresses both graduate students and researchers in search of a high-level but approachable and broad introduction to the topic.

Dramatic progress is a trademark of the recent study of globular cluster systems. Considerations about the formation and evolution compose the first chapter, followed by a chapter on young star clusters. Then come four chapters reviewing the globular cluster system of early-type, late-type and dwarf galaxies, as well as of groups of galaxies. One chapter is dedicated to stellar population models and their applications to the field. Finally a chapter reviews the kinematics of galaxies derived from globular cluster systems and another their role in the context of galaxy formation and evolution studies. As a whole, the book gives an up-to-date view of the field at the beginning of the new decade, which will without doubt again bring significant progress in our understanding of globular cluster systems and galaxy formation and evolution.

The 2008 Spring Meeting of the Arbeitskreis Festkorperphysik was held in Berlin, Germany, between February 24 and February 29, 2008 in conjunction with the 72nd Annual Meeting of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft. The 2008 meeting was the largest physics meeting in Europe and among the largest physics meetings in the world in 2008."

This book is one result from the 1996 Millimeter-wave Summer School held at the Instituto Nacional de Astrofisica, Optica y Electronica (INAOE), Tonantz- intla, Puebla, Mexico. In collaboration with the University of Massachusetts, INAOE has embarked upon the ambitious project of building the world's largest filled aperture millimeter-wave telescope - the Large Millimeter-wave Tele- scope (LMT), or Gran Telescopio Milimetrico (GTM). The LMT is currently the largest scientific project in Mexico. The summer school had a dual purpose; first, to introduce the Mexican as- tronomical and physics communities to millimeter wavelength astronomy, and second, to provide a forum for a review of several important aspects of the state of the art in observations, theory, interpretation, and technology relevant to this branch of astronomy. The summer school had 18 invited speakers and 44 par- ticipants. The scientific organizing committee (SOC) consisted of Luis Carrasco (UNAM/INAOE, Mexico), Paul Goldsmith (NAIC, Cornell Univ., USA), and Andy Harris (Univ. of Maryland, USA). Members of the local organizing com- mittee (LOC) were Alberto Carramiiiana (INAOE), Emmanuel Mendez Palma (INAOE), Mari Paz Miralles (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, USA), and William Wall (INAOE).

This book gives an exposition of both the old and new results of spin and torsion effects on gravitational interactions with implications for particle physics, cosmology etc. Physical aspects are stressed and measurable effects in relation to other areas of physics are discussed.Among the topics discussed are: alternative ways of unifying gravity with electroweak and strong interactions by an energy dependent spin torsion coupling constant; the idea that all interactions can be understood as originating from spin curvature coupling; the possibility of cosmological models with torsion providing a solution to the cosmological constant problem; and a demonstration that torsion can lead directly to the quantization of space-time itself.

Refrigeration plays a prominent role in our everyday lives, and cryogenics plays a major role in medical science, space technology and the cooling of low-temperature electronics. This volume contains chapters on basic refrigeration systems, non-compression refrigeration and cooling, and topics related to global environmental issues, alternative refrigerants, optimum refrigerant selection, cost-quality optimization of refrigerants, advanced thermodynamics of reverse-cycle machines, applications in medicine, cryogenics, heat pipes, gas-solid absorption refrigeration, multisalt resorption heat pumps, cryocoolers, thermoacoustic refrigeration, cryogenic heat transfer and enhancement and other topics covering theory, design, and applications, such as pulse tube refrigeration, which is the most efficient of all cryocoolers and can be used in space missions.

Galaxies and Chaos examines the application of tools developed for Nonlinear Dynamical Systems to Galactic Dynamics and Galaxy Formation, as well as to related issues in Celestial Mechanics. The contributions collected in this volume have emerged from selected presentations at a workshop on this topic and key chapters have been suitably expanded in order to be accessible to nonspecialist researchers and postgraduate students wishing to enter this exciting field of research.

The book describes first the principle photon generation processes from nuclear reactions, electron motion and from discrete quantum transitions. It then focuses on the use of photons in various selected fields of modern natural and life sciences. It bridges disciplines such as physics, chemistry, earth- and materials science, proteomics, information technology, photoelectrochemistry, photosynthesis and spintronics. Advanced light sources and their use in natural and life sciences are emphasized and the effects related to the quantum nature of photons (quantum computing, teleportation) are described. The content encompasses among many other examples the role of photons on the origin of life and on homochirality in biology, femtosecond laser slicing, photothermal cancer therapy, the use of gamma rays in materials science, photoelectrochemical surface conditioning, quantum information aspects and photo-spintronics. The book is written for scientists and graduate students from all related disciplines who are interested in the science beyond their immediate research field. It is meant to encourage interdisciplinary research and development in an age where nanoscience results in a convergence of formerly more disparate science.

Magnetic fields are responsible for much of the variability and structuring in the universe, but only on the Sun can the basic magnetic field related processes be explored in detail. While several excellent textbooks have established a diagnostic foundation for exploring the physics of unmagnetized stellar atmospheres through spectral analysis, no corresponding treatise for magnetized stellar atmospheres has been available. The present monograph fills this gap. The theoretical foundation for the diagnostics of stellar magnetism is developed from first principles in a comprehensive way, both within the frameworks of classical physics and quantum field theory, together with a presentation of the various solar applications. This textbook can serve as an introduction to solar and stellar magnetism for astronomers and physicists at the graduate or advanced undergraduate level and will also become a resource book for more senior scientists with a general interest in cosmic magnetic fields.

This second edition reflects significant progress in tsunami research, monitoring and mitigation within the last decade. Primarily meant to summarize the state-of-the-art knowledge on physics of tsunamis, it describes up-to-date models of tsunamis generated by a submarine earthquake, landslide, volcanic eruption, meteorite impact, and moving atmospheric pressure inhomogeneities. Models of tsunami propagation and run-up are also discussed. The book investigates methods of tsunami monitoring including coastal mareographs, deep-water pressure gauges, GPS buoys, satellite altimetry, the study of ionospheric disturbances caused by tsunamis and the study of paleotsunamis. Non-linear phenomena in tsunami source and manifestations of water compressibility are discussed in the context of their contribution to the wave amplitude and energy. The practical method of calculating the initial elevation on a water surface at a seismotectonic tsunami source is expounded. Potential and eddy traces of a tsunamigenic earthquake in the ocean are examined in terms of their applicability to tsunami warning. The first edition of this book was published in 2009. Since then, a few catastrophic events occurred, including the 2011 Tohoku tsunami, which is well known all over the world. The book is intended for researchers, students and specialists in oceanography, geophysics, seismology, hydro-acoustics, geology, and geomorphology, including the engineering and insurance industries.

p-adic numbers play a very important role in modern number theory, algebraic geometry and representation theory. Lately p-adic numbers have attracted a great deal of attention in modern theoretical physics as a promising new approach for describing the non-Archimedean geometry of space-time at small distances.This is the first book to deal with applications of p-adic numbers in theoretical and mathematical physics. It gives an elementary and thoroughly written introduction to p-adic numbers and p-adic analysis with great numbers of examples as well as applications of p-adic numbers in classical mechanics, dynamical systems, quantum mechanics, statistical physics, quantum field theory and string theory.

Some twenty-three years after the discovery of pulsars and their identification as rotating neutron stars, neutron star physics may be regarded as comingofage. Pul sars and accreting neutron stars have now been studied at every wavelength, from the initial radio observations, through optical, X-, and "{-ray, up to the very recent observations in the TeV region, while theorists have studied in some detail relevant physical processes both outside and inside neutron stars. As a result, comparisonof theory with observation provides a test ofour theoretical ideas in fields as diverse as neutron and nuclear matter, superfluidity and superconductivity, the acceleration of high energy particles, and the generation and maintenance of intense magnetic fields. For example, through observations of glitches and post glitch behavior of pulsars, it has become possible to establish the presence ofsuperfluid neutron mat ter in the inner crust of neutron stars, and to determine some of its properties, while neutron stars in compact binary systems offer one ofthe most efficient energy generation mechanisms known. It is in fact the interactive interpretation of these, diverse pieces of information that can lead to major advances in our understanding of the physics of these exotic objects, and justifies the characterization of neutron stars as hadron physics laboratories."

This textbook presents the established sciences of optical, infrared, and radio astronomy as distinct research areas, focusing on the science targets and the constraints that they place on instrumentation in the different domains. It aims to bridge the gap between specialized books and practical texts, presenting the state of the art in different techniques. For each type of astronomy, the discussion proceeds from the orders of magnitude for observable quantities that drive the building of instrumentation and the development of advanced techniques. The specific telescopes and detectors are then presented, together with the techniques used to measure fluxes and spectra. Finally, the instruments and their limits are discussed to assist readers in choice of setup, planning and execution of observations, and data reduction. The volume also includes worked examples and problem sets to improve student understanding; tables and figures in chapters su mmarize the state of the art of instrumentation and techniques.

The question of a possible temporal variation of the fundamental constants was raised by Paul Dirac in his "large number hypothesis" in 1937. Today it appears in the context of the search for a unified theory of the fundamental interactions. It touches both fundamental and applied physics, as the postulate of the unalterability of the constants is the foundation for modern metrology. The book presents reviews written by leading experts in the field. Focussing on the question of variations of the fundamental "constants" in time or space, the chapters cover the theoretical framework in which variations are expected and the search for variations of quantities like the fine-structure constant, the electron/proton mass ratio, g-factors of proton and neutron etc. in astrophysical and geophysical observations and in precision experiments with atomic clocks and frequency standards.

This volume covers the latest developments in optical imaging of the brain which is becoming an increasingly important functional neuroimaging method. Optical intrinsic signals offer unrivaled temporal and spatial resolution of functional measurements of the exposed brain cortex in animals and humans. Near-infrared spectroscopy and imaging ap proaches permit the noninvasive functional assessment of the human brain at bedside. Main advantages of these optical techniques are the biochemical specificity of the meas urements and the potential of measuring correlates of intracellular and intravascular oxy genation simultaneously. Recent data indicate that one may also measure a more direct correlate of neuronal activity associated with changes in light scattering. In this volume, recent technical progress of the optical method is covered as well as the physiological basis of the measurements. In simultaneous studies, near-infrared spec troscopy measurements are directly compared to other functional methods, especially PET and fMRI and examples are given for new applications of the NIRS-method. Based on re sults obtained with optical methods and other functional techniques the latest in our under standing of the coupling of neuronal activity and cerebral blood flow response is reviewed. This is an important basis for a better understanding of all functional neuroi maging methods which rely on neurovascular coupling such as PET, SPET and fMRI. Fi nally the optical method is put into the perspective of presently available functional neuroimaging methods including fMRI, PET, MEG and EEG."

This book addresses current activities in strong-motion networks around the globe, covering issues related to designing, maintaining and disseminating information from these arrays. The book is divided in three principal sections. The first section includes recent developments in regional and global ground-motion predictive models. It presents discussions on the similarities and differences of ground motion estimations from these models and their application to design spectra as well as other novel procedures for predicting engineering parameters in seismic regions with sparse data. The second section introduces topics about the particular methodologies being implemented in the recently established global and regional strong-motion databanks in Europe to maintain and disseminate the archived accelerometric data. The final section describes major strong-motion arrays around the world and their historical developments. The last three chapters of this section introduce projects carried out within the context of arrays deployed for seismic risk studies in metropolitan areas. Audience: This timely book will be of particular interest for researchers who use accelerometric data extensively to conduct studies in earthquake engineering and engineering seismology.

It is now well established that all living systems emit a weak but permanent photon flux in the visible and ultraviolet range. This biophoton emission is correlated with many, if not all, biological and physiological functions. There are indications of a hitherto-overlooked information channel within the living system. Biophotons may trigger chemical reactivity in cells, growth control, differentiation and intercellular communication, i.e. biological rhythms. The basic experimental and theoretical framework, the technical problems and the wide field of applications in the food industry, medicine, pharmacology, environmental science and basic sciences are presented in this book, which also includes the rapidly growing literature. This book is written by the most outstanding international scientists familiar with this topic who have been working in this field for many years.