Phase transitions are involved in phenomena ranging from the initial stages of the creation of the Universe to the existence of biological objects. It is natural to as whether any phenomena analogous to phase transitions are possible in disordered substances like liquids and glasses. The possibility of such transitions is still very much a matter of debate. Neither the nature nor the features of transformations in liquids and glasses are yet clear, nor is the nature of the order parameters. Investigations in recent years have shown that transformations in liquids and glasses lead to a drastic change of their physical properties and short-range order structure.
The papers collected here contribute to a better understanding of the physics of disordered systems and phase transformations in them. An unambiguous identification of transitions in liquids and glasses requires further high-precision experimental study of the thermodynamic and structural properties in the vicinity of transitions in order to test existing theoretical models and develop new, more accurate ones.

After a brief outline of magnetohydrodynamic theory, this introductory book discusses the macroscopic aspects of MHD turbulence, and covers the small-scale scaling properties. Applications are provided for astrophysical and laboratory systems. Magnetic turbulence is the natural state of most astrophysical systems, such as stellar convection zones, stellar winds or accretion discs. It is also found in laboratory devices, most notably in the reversed field pinch.

Plasma processing of semiconductors is an interdisciplinary field requiring knowledge of both plasma physics and chemical engineering. The two authors are experts in each of these fields, and their collaboration results in the merging of these fields with a common terminology. Basic plasma concepts are introduced painlessly to those who have studied undergraduate electromagnetics but have had no previous exposure to plasmas. Unnecessarily detailed derivations are omitted; yet the reader is led to understand in some depth those concepts, such as the structure of sheaths, that are important in the design and operation of plasma processing reactors. Physicists not accustomed to low-temperature plasmas are introduced to chemical kinetics, surface science, and molecular spectroscopy. The material has been condensed to suit a nine-week graduate course, but it is sufficient to bring the reader up to date on current problems such as copper interconnects, low-k and high-k dielectrics, and oxide damage. Students will appreciate the web-style layout with ample color illustrations opposite the text, with ample room for notes. The included CD contains a copy of the book which can be indexed using a Search function, and which can be enlarged on a monitor for a closer look at the diagrams. Sample homework and exam problems can also be found on the CD.

This short book is ideal for new workers in the semiconductor industry who want to be brought up to speed with minimum effort. It is also suitable for Chemical Engineering students studying plasma processing of materials; Engineers, physicists, and technicians entering the semiconductor industry who want a quick overview of the use of plasmas inthe industry.

One of the most important issues in the construction of future magnetic confinement fusion machines is that of the materials of which they are constructed, and one of the key points of proper material choice is the recycle of hydrogen isotopes with materials at the plasma face. Tritium machines demand high safety and economy, which in turn requires the lowest possible T inventory and smallest possible permeation through the plasma facing materials. The recycle behaviour of the in-vessel components must also be known if the plasma reaction is to predictable and controllable, and finally, the fuel cycle and plasma operating regimes may be actively controlled by special materials and methods. The book discusses both laboratory experiments exploring the basic properties of non-equilibrium hydrogen-solid systems (diffusion, absorption, boundary processes) and experimental results obtained from existing fusion machines under conditions simulating future situations to some extent. Contributions are from experts in the fields of nuclear fusion, materials science, surface science, vacuum science and technology, and solid state physics.

A concise and physically-motivated treatment of the major processes which determine the interaction of intense light waves with plasmas. This book includes discussions of basic plasma concepts, plasma simulation using particle codes, and laser plasma experiments. It is the most elementary book currently available that successfully blends theory, simulation, and experiment, and presents a clear exposition of the major physical processes involved in laser-plasma interactions.

The twentieth century has witnessed the transformation of astronomy from celestial mechanics to astrophysics. While optical telescopes may have presented a peek into the structure of the constituents of the universe, such as stars and galaxies, new windows of observation have revealed far more amorphous objects, from nebulae and sheets to filaments and voids, whose "violent" processes include flares, shocks, accretion disks and jets. In these processes, plasma is often the constituent matter-- as well as the medium through which the astrophysical setting becomes so violent. In this graduate level text, Tajima and Shibata offer a new synthesis starting where classic works on plasma physics left off. Beginning with a view of plasma astrophysics through fundamental processes of quasi-magnetostatic equilibria, quasi-hydrostatic equilibria, and non-equilibria, the authors go on to develop unique approaches to violent astrophysical plasmas-- as opposed to the more quiescent laboratory variety-- and their processes. The text continues with an exploration of the fundamental processes in hydrostatic, magnetostatic, and gravitational objects. The final chapter is devoted to a discussion of the applications of plasma astrophysics to cosmology, anticipating future developments in this exciting field.This text will be of enormous use to graduate-- and some advanced undergraduate-- students, as well as to physicists entering the field of plasma physics.

This textbook provides a comprehensive introduction to the physics of laser-plasma interactions (LPI), based on a graduate course taught by the author. The emphasis is on high-energy-density physics (HEDP) and inertial confinement fusion (ICF), with a comprehensive description of the propagation, absorption, nonlinear effects and parametric instabilities of high energy lasers in plasmas. The recent demonstration of a burning plasma on the verge of nuclear fusion ignition at the National Ignition Facility in Livermore, California, has marked the beginning of a new era of ICF and fusion research. These new developments make LPI more relevant than ever, and the resulting influx of new scientists necessitates new pedagogical material on the subject. In contrast to the classical textbooks on LPI, this book provides a complete description of all wave-coupling instabilities in unmagnetized plasmas in the kinetic as well as fluid pictures, and includes a comprehensive description of the optical smoothing techniques used on high-power lasers and their impact on laser-plasma instabilities. It summarizes all the key developments from the 1970s to the present day in view of the current state of LPI and ICF research; it provides a derivation of the key LPI metrics and formulas from first principles, and connects the theory to experimental observables. With exercises and plenty of illustrations, this book is ideal as a textbook for a course on laser-plasma interactions or as a supplementary text for graduate introductory plasma physics course. Students and researchers will also find it to be an invaluable reference and self-study resource.

This book presents the contents of a CISM Course on waves and instabilities in plasmas. For beginners and for advanced scientists a review is given on the state of knowledge in the field. Customers can obtain a broad survey.

Blood microcirculation is essential to our bodies for the successful supply of nutrients, waste removal, oxygen delivery, homeostasis, controlling temperature, wound healing, and active immune surveillance. This book provides a physical introduction to the subject and explores how researchers can successfully describe, understand, and predict behaviours of blood flow and blood cells that are directly linked to these important physiological functions. Using practical examples, this book explains how the key concepts of physics are related to blood microcirculation and underlie the dynamic behavior of red blood cells, leukocytes, and platelets. This interdisciplinary book will be a valuable reference for researchers and graduate students in biomechanics, fluid mechanics, biomedical engineering, biological physics, and medicine. Features: The first book to provide a physical perspective of blood microcirculation Draws attention to the potential of this physical approach for novel applications in medicine Edited by specialists in this field, with chapter contributions from subject area specialists

The fourth edition of Transport Phenomena Fundamentals continues with its streamlined approach to the subject, based on a unified treatment of heat, mass, and momentum transport using a balance equation approach. The new edition includes more worked examples within each chapter and adds confidence-building problems at the end of each chapter. Some numerical solutions are included in an appendix for students to check their comprehension of key concepts. Additional resources online include exercises that can be practiced using a wide range of software programs available for simulating engineering problems, such as, COMSOL (R), Maple (R), Fluent, Aspen, Mathematica, Python and MATLAB (R), lecture notes, and past exams. This edition incorporates a wider range of problems to expand the utility of the text beyond chemical engineering. The text is divided into two parts, which can be used for teaching a two-term course. Part I covers the balance equation in the context of diffusive transport-momentum, energy, mass, and charge. Each chapter adds a term to the balance equation, highlighting that term's effects on the physical behavior of the system and the underlying mathematical description. Chapters familiarize students with modeling and developing mathematical expressions based on the analysis of a control volume, the derivation of the governing differential equations, and the solution to those equations with appropriate boundary conditions. Part II builds on the diffusive transport balance equation by introducing convective transport terms, focusing on partial, rather than ordinary, differential equations. The text describes paring down the full, microscopic equations governing the phenomena to simplify the models and develop engineering solutions, and it introduces macroscopic versions of the balance equations for use where the microscopic approach is either too difficult to solve or would yield much more information that is actually required. The text discusses the momentum, Bernoulli, energy, and species continuity equations, including a brief description of how these equations are applied to heat exchangers, continuous contactors, and chemical reactors. The book introduces the three fundamental transport coefficients: the friction factor, the heat transfer coefficient, and the mass transfer coefficient in the context of boundary layer theory. Laminar flow situations are treated first followed by a discussion of turbulence. The final chapter covers the basics of radiative heat transfer, including concepts such as blackbodies, graybodies, radiation shields, and enclosures.

Prof. Newman is considered one of the great chemical engineers of his time. His reputation derives from his mastery of all phases of the subject matter, his clarity of thought, and his ability to reduce complex problems to their essential core elements. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, Washington, DC, USA, and has won numerous national awards including every award offered by the Electrochemical Society, USA. His motto, as known by his colleagues, is "do it right the first time." He has been teaching undergraduate and graduate core subject courses at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), USA, since joining the faculty in 1966. His method is to write out, in long form, everything he expects to convey to his class on a subject on any given day. He has maintained and updated his lecture notes from notepad to computer throughout his career. This book is an exact reproduction of those notes. This book shows a clean and concise way on how to use different analytical techniques to solve equations of multiple forms that one is likely to encounter in most engineering fields, especially chemical engineering. It provides the framework for formulating and solving problems in mass transport, fluid dynamics, reaction kinetics, and thermodynamics through ordinary and partial differential equations. It includes topics such as Laplace transforms, Legendre's equation, vector calculus, Fourier transforms, similarity transforms, coordinate transforms, conformal mapping, variational calculus, superposition integrals, and hyperbolic equations. The simplicity of the presentation instils confidence in the readers that they can solve any problem they come across either analytically or computationally.

For over 60 years, scientists and engineers have been trying to crack a seemingly intractable problem: how to build practical devices that exploit nuclear fusion. Access to electricity has facilitated a standard of living that was previously unimaginable, but as the world’s population grows and developing nations increasingly reap the benefits of electrification, we face a serious global problem: burning fossil fuels currently produces about eighty percent of the world's energy, but it produces a greenhouse effect that traps outgoing infrared radiation and warms the planet, risking dire environmental consequences unless we reduce our fossil fuel consumption to near zero in the coming decades. Nuclear fusion, the energy-producing process in the sun and stars, could provide the answer: if it can be successfully harnessed here on Earth, it will produce electricity with near-zero CO2 byproduct by using the nuclei in water as its main fuel. The principles behind fusion are understood, but the technology is far from being fully realized, and governments, universities, and venture capitalists are pumping vast amounts of money into many ideas, some highly speculative, that could lead to functioning fusion reactors. This book puts all of these attempts together in one place, providing clear explanations for readers who are interested in new energy technologies, including those with no formal training in science or engineering. For each of the many approaches to fusion, the reader will learn who pioneered the approach, how the concept works in plain English, how experimental tests were engineered, the future prospects, and comparison with other approaches. From long-established fusion technologies to emerging and exotic methods, the reader will learn all about the idea that could eventually constitute the single greatest engineering advance in human history.

This volume describes the application of the method of the differential specific forces (MDSF). By using this new method, the solutions to the problems of a dissipative viscoelastic and elastic-plastic contacts between curvilinear surfaces of two solid bodies can be found. The novelty is that the forces of viscosity and the forces of elasticity can be found by an integration of the differential specific forces acting inside an elementary volume of the contact zone. This volume shows that this method allows finding the viscoelastic forces for any theoretical or experimental dependencies between the distance of mutual approach of two curvilinear surfaces and the radiuses of the contact area. Also, the derivation of the integral equations of the viscoelastic forces has been given and the equations for the contact pressure have been obtained. The viscoelastic and elastic-plastic contacts at impact between two spherical bodies have been examined. The equations for work and energy in the phases of compression and restitution and at the rolling shear have been obtained. Approximate solutions for the differential equations of movement (displacement) by using the method of equivalent work have been calculated. This new method of differential specific viscoelastic forces allows us to find the equations for all viscoelastic forces. It is principally different from other methods that use Hertz's theory, the classical theory of elasticity and the tensor algebra. This method will be useful in research of contact dynamics of any shape of contacting surfaces. It also can be used for determination of the dynamic mechanical properties of materials and in the design of wear-resistant elements and coverings for components of machines and equipment that are in harsh conditions where they are subjected to the action of flow or jet abrasive particles. This volume will be useful for professional designers of machines and mechanisms as well as for the design and development of new advanced materials, such as wear-resistant elastic coatings and elements for pneumatic and hydraulic systems, stop valves, fans, centrifugal pumps, injectors, valves, gate valves, and in other installations.

A groundbreaking textbook on twenty-first-century plasma physics and its applications Kip Thorne and Roger Blandford's monumental Modern Classical Physics is now available in five stand-alone volumes that make ideal textbooks for individual graduate or advanced undergraduate courses on statistical physics; optics; elasticity and fluid dynamics; plasma physics; and relativity and cosmology. Each volume teaches the fundamental concepts, emphasizes modern, real-world applications, and gives students a physical and intuitive understanding of the subject. Plasma Physics provides an essential introduction to the subject. A gas that is significantly ionized, usually by heating or photons, a plasma is composed of electrons and ions and sometimes has an embedded or confining magnetic field. Plasmas play a major role in many contemporary applications, phenomena, and fields, including attempts to achieve controlled thermonuclear fusion using magnetic or inertial confinement; in explanations of radio wave propagation in the ionosphere and the behavior of the solar corona and wind; and in astrophysics, where plasmas are responsible for emission throughout the electromagnetic spectrum, including from black holes, highly magnetized neutron stars, and ultrarelativistic outflows. The book also can serve as supplementary reading for many other courses, including in astrophysics, geophysics, and controlled fusion. Includes many exercise problems Features color figures, suggestions for further reading, extensive cross-references, and a detailed index Optional "Track 2" sections make this an ideal book for a one-quarter or one-semester course An online illustration package is available to professors The five volumes, which are available individually as paperbacks and ebooks, are Statistical Physics; Optics; Elasticity and Fluid Dynamics; Plasma Physics; and Relativity and Cosmology.

This valuable volume provides a broad understanding of the main computational techniques used for processing reclamation of fluid and solid mechanics. The aim of these computational techniques is to reduce and eliminate the risks of mechanical systems failure in hydraulic machines. Using many computational methods for mechanical engineering problems, the book presents not only a platform for solving problems but also provides a wealth of information to address various technical aspects of troubleshooting of mechanical system failure. The focus of the book is on practical and realistic fluids engineering experiences. Many photographs and figures are included, especially to illustrate new design applications and new instruments.

Since 1972 the Schools on Nonlinear Physics in Gorky have been a meeting place for Soviet scientists working in this field. Instead of producing for the first time English proceedings it has been decided to present a good cross section of nonlinear physics in the USSR. Thus the participants at the last School were invited to provide English reviews and research papers for these two volumes (which in the years to come will be followed by the proceedings of forthcoming schools). "The first volume" starts with a historical overview of nonlinear dynamics from Poincare to the present day and touches topics like attractors, nonlinear oscillators and waves, turbulence, pattern formation, and dynamics of structures in nonequilibrium dissipative media. It then deals with structures, bistabilities, instabilities, chaos, dynamics of defects in 1d systems, self-organizations, solitons, spatio-temporal structures and wave collapse in optical systems, lasers, plasmas, reaction-diffusion systems and solids."

It was about fourteen years ago that some of us became intrigued with the idea of searching the sky for X-ray and gamma-ray sources other than the Sun, the only celestial emitter of high-energy photons known at that time. It was, of course, clear that an effort in this direction would not have been successful unless there occurred, somewhere in space, processes capable of producing high-energy photons much more efficiently than the processes responsible for the radiative emission of the Sun or of ordinary stars. The possible existence of such processes became the subject of much study and discussion. As an important part of this activity, I wish to recall a one-day conference on X-ray astronomy held at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in 1960. The theoretical predictions did not provide much encouragement. While several 'unusual' celestial objects were pin-pointed as possible, or even likely, sources of X-rays, it did not look as if any of them would be strong enough to be observable with instru mentation not too far beyond the state of the art. Fortunately, we did not allow our selves to be dissuaded. As far as I am personally concerned, I must admit that my main motivation for pressing forward was a deep-seated faith in the boundless re sourcefulness of nature, which so often leaves the most daring imagination of man far behind."

This book focuses on the use of novel electron microscopy techniques to further our understanding of the physics behind electron-light interactions. It introduces and discusses the methodologies for advancing the field of electron microscopy towards a better control of electron dynamics with significantly improved temporal resolutions, and explores the burgeoning field of nanooptics - the physics of light-matter interaction at the nanoscale - whose practical applications transcend numerous fields such as energy conversion, control of chemical reactions, optically induced phase transitions, quantum cryptography, and data processing. In addition to describing analytical and numerical techniques for exploring the theoretical basis of electron-light interactions, the book showcases a number of relevant case studies, such as optical modes in gold tapers probed by electron beams and investigations of optical excitations in the topological insulator Bi2Se3. The experiments featured provide an impetus to develop more relevant theoretical models, benchmark current approximations, and even more characterization tools based on coherent electron-light interactions.

This book offers a comprehensive and cohesive overview of transport processes associated with all kinds of charged particles, including electrons, ions, positrons, and muons, in both gases and condensed matter. The emphasis is on fundamental physics, linking experiment, theory and applications. In particular, the authors discuss: The kinetic theory of gases, from the traditional Boltzmann equation to modern generalizations A complementary approach: Maxwell's equations of change and fluid modeling Calculation of ion-atom scattering cross sections Extension to soft condensed matter, amorphous materials Applications: drift tube experiments, including the Franck-Hertz experiment, modeling plasma processing devices, muon catalysed fusion, positron emission tomography, gaseous radiation detectors Straightforward, physically-based arguments are used wherever possible to complement mathematical rigor. Robert Robson has held professorial positions in Japan, the USA and Australia, and was an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at several universities in Germany. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society. Ronald White is Professor of Physics and Head of Physical Sciences at James Cook University, Australia. Malte Hildebrandt is Head of the Detector Group in the Laboratory of Particle Physics at the Paul Scherrer Institut, Switzerland.

Basic Consideration.- Steady State Cross-Magnetic Flow.- Hierarchy for the Moments of density Fluctuations.- Effect of small amplitude Fluctuations.- Current convective Instability.- Effect of large amplitude Fluctuations.- Discussion.- Acknowledgement.- References.

Key features: Organizes a difficult subject into short and clearly written sections. Can be used alongside any introductory physics textbook. Presents clear examples for every problem type discussed in the textbook.

The book describes a statistical approach to the basics of plasma physics.

While several reviews and books on surface nanophotonics and fluorescence spectroscopy are available, an updated focus on molecular plasmonics, including both theoretical methods and experimental aspects, is still lacking. This handbook is a comprehensive overview on the physics of the plasmon emitter interaction, ranging from electromagnetism to quantum mechanics, from metal-enhanced fluorescence to surface-enhanced Raman scattering, from optical microscopy to synthesis of metal nanoparticles, filling the gap in the literature of this merging field. It allows experimentalists to have a solid theoretical reference at a different level of accuracy, and theoreticians to find new stimuli for novel computational methods and emerging applications.