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Books > Science & Mathematics > Physics > Thermodynamics & statistical physics > Statistical physics
Nonlinear elliptic problems play an increasingly important role in
mathematics, science and engineering, creating an exciting
interplay between the subjects. This is the first and only book to
prove in a systematic and unifying way, stability, convergence and
computing results for the different numerical methods for nonlinear
elliptic problems. The proofs use linearization, compact
perturbation of the coercive principal parts, or monotone operator
techniques, and approximation theory. Examples are given for linear
to fully nonlinear problems (highest derivatives occur nonlinearly)
and for the most important space discretization methods: conforming
and nonconforming finite element, discontinuous Galerkin, finite
difference, wavelet (and, in a volume to follow, spectral and
meshfree) methods. A number of specific long open problems are
solved here: numerical methods for fully nonlinear elliptic
problems, wavelet and meshfree methods for nonlinear problems, and
more general nonlinear boundary conditions. We apply it to all
these problems and methods, in particular to eigenvalues, monotone
operators, quadrature approximations, and Newton methods.
Adaptivity is discussed for finite element and wavelet methods.
This book gathers contributions on a variety of flowing collective systems. While primarily focusing on pedestrian dynamics, they also reflect the latest developments in areas such as vehicular traffic and granular flows and address related emerging topics such as self-propelled particles, data transport, swarm behavior, intercellular transport, and collective dynamics of biological systems. Combining fundamental research and practical applications in the various fields discussed, the book offers a valuable asset for researchers and practitioners alike.
Polymers in Solution is devoted to the static properties of flexible polymers in solution. It presents the progress made by both theory and experiment in the years up to its original publication in 1990, and remains one of the most advanced books available on this subject. Despite the variety in the chemical composition and physical properties of long polymer chains, when in solution they show a universality in their behaviour. On the experimental side, the use of photon and neutron scattering has led to a better understanding, while the use of computer simulation has also produced interesting results. This work is the result of a collaboration between a theoretician and an experimentalist, who have both worked for many years on polymer solutions.
The aim of this book is to present a statistical theory of wave scattering by complex systems -systems which have a chaotic classical dynamics, as in the case of microwave cavities and quantum dots, or possess quenched randomness, as in the case of disordered conductors- with emphasis on mesoscopic fluctuations. The universal character of the statistical behavior of these phenomena is incorporated in a natural way by approaching the problem from a Maximum-Entropy viewpoint -Shannon's information entropy is maximized, subject to the symmetries and constraints that are physically relevant- within the powerful, non-perturbative Theory of Random Matrices. This is a distinctive feature of the present book that greatly motivated our writing it. Another reason is that it collects in one place the material and notions -derived from the published work of the authors in collaboration with several co-workers, as well as from the work of others- which are scattered through research journals and textbooks on the subject. To make the book self-contained, we present in Chapters 2 and 3 the quantum theory of scattering, set in the context of quasi-one-dimensional, multichannel systems, thus related directly to scattering problems in mesoscopic physics. Chapter 4 discusses the linear-response theory of quantum electronic transport, adapted to the context of mesoscopic systems. These chapters, together with Chapter 5 on the Maximum-Entropy Approach and Chapter 8 on weak localization, have been written in a pedagogical style, and can be used as part of a graduate course. Chapters 6 and 7 discuss the problem of electronic transport through classically chaotic cavities and quasi-one-dimensional disordered systems. There are many exercises, most of them worked out in detail, distributed throughout the book. This should help graduate students, their teachers and the research scholars interested generally in the subject of quantum transport through disordered and chaotic systems in their preparation for it, and beyond.
Energy is at the heart of physics (and of huge importance to
society) and yet no book exists specifically to explain it, and in
simple terms. In tracking the history of energy, this book is
filled with the thrill of the chase, the mystery of smoke and
mirrors, and presents a fascinating human-interest story. Following
the history provides a crucial aid to understanding: this book
explains the intellectual revolutions required to comprehend
energy, revolutions as profound as those stemming from Relativity
and Quantum Theory. Texts by Descartes, Leibniz, Bernoulli,
d'Alembert, Lagrange, Hamilton, Boltzmann, Clausius, Carnot and
others are made accessible, and the engines of Watt and Joule are
explained.
Cosmology has undergone a revolution in recent years. The exciting
interplay between astronomy and fundamental physics has led to
dramatic revelations, including the existence of the dark matter
and the dark energy that appear to dominate our cosmos. But these
discoveries only reveal themselves through small effects in noisy
experimental data. Dealing with such observations requires the
careful application of probability and statistics.
Statistical Mechanics is the study of systems where the number of
interacting particles becomes infinite. In the last fifty years
tremendous advances have been made which have required the
invention of entirely new fields of mathematics such as quantum
groups and affine Lie algebras. They have engendered remarkable
discoveries concerning non-linear differential equations and
algebraic geometry, and have produced profound insights in both
condensed matter physics and quantum field theory. Unfortunately,
none of these advances are taught in graduate courses in
statistical mechanics.
This book contains the courses given at the Fifth School on Complex Systems held at Santiago, Chile, from 9th .to 13th December 1996. At this school met researchers working on areas related with recent trends in Complex Systems, which include dynamical systems, cellular automata, symbolic dynamics, spatial systems, statistical physics and thermodynamics. Scientists working in these subjects come from several areas: pure and applied mathematics, physics, biology, computer science and electrical engineering. Each contribution is devoted to one of the above subjects. In most cases they are structured as surveys, presenting at the same time an original point of view about the topic and showing mostly new results. The paper of Bruno Durand presents the state of the art on the relationships between the notions of surjectivity, injectivity and reversibility in cellular automata when finite, infinite or periodic configurations are considered, also he discusses decidability problems related with the classification of cellular automata as well as global properties mentioned above. The paper of Eric Goles and Martin Matamala gives a uniform presentation of simulations of Turing machines by cellular automata. The main ingredient is the encoding function which must be fixed for all Turing machine. In this context known results are revised and new results are presented.
Quantum information- the subject- is a new and exciting area of
science, which brings together physics, information theory,
computer science and mathematics. Quantum Information- the book- is
based on two successful lecture courses given to advanced
undergraduate and beginning postgraduate students in physics. The
intention is to introduce readers at this level to the fundamental,
but offer rather simple, ideas behind ground-breaking developments
including quantum cryptography, teleportation and quantum
computing. The text is necessarily rather mathematical in style,
but the mathematics nowhere allowed priority over the key physical
ideas. My aim throughout was to be as complete and self- contained
but to avoid, as far as possible, lengthy and formal mathematical
proofs. Each of the eight chapters is followed by about forty
exercise problems with which the reader can test their
understanding and hone their skills. These will also provide a
valuable resource to tutors and lectures.
This is the first scientic book devoted to the Pauli exclusion principle, which is a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics and is permanently applied in chemistry, physics, and molecular biology. However, while the principle has been studied for more than 90 years, rigorous theoretical foundations still have not been established and many unsolved problems remain. Following a historical survey in Chapter 1, the book discusses the still unresolved questions around this fundamental principle. For instance, why, according to the Pauli exclusion principle, are only symmetric and antisymmetric permutation symmetries for identical particles realized, while the Schrodinger equation is satisfied by functions with any permutation symmetry? Chapter 3 covers possible answers to this question. The construction of function with a given permutation symmetry is described in the previous Chapter 2, while Chapter 4 presents effective and elegant methods for finding the Pauli-allowed states in atomic, molecular, and nuclear spectroscopy. Chapter 5 discusses parastatistics and fractional statistics, demonstrating that the quasiparticles in a periodical lattice, including excitons and magnons, are obeying modified parafermi statistics. With detailed appendices, The Pauli Exclusion Principle: Origin, Verifications, and Applications is intended as a self-sufficient guide for graduate students and academic researchers in the fields of chemistry, physics, molecular biology and applied mathematics. It will be a valuable resource for any reader interested in the foundations of quantum mechanics and its applications, including areas such as atomic and molecular spectroscopy, spintronics, theoretical chemistry, and applied fields of quantum information.
The subject of this book is the Casimir effect, a manifestation of zero-point oscillations of the quantum vacuum resulting in forces acting between closely spaced bodies. For the benefit of the reader, the book assembles field-theoretical foundations of this phenomenon, applications of the general theory to real materials, and a comprehensive description of all recently performed measurements of the Casimir force with a comparison between experiment and theory. There is an urgent need for a book of this type, given the increase of interest in forces originating from the quantum vacuum. Numerous new results have been obtained in the last few years which are not reflected in previous books on the subject, but which are very promising for fundamental science and nanotechnology. The book is a unique source of information presenting a critical assessment of all the main results and approaches from hundreds of journal papers. It also outlines new ideas which have not yet been universally accepted but which are finding increasing support from experiment.
This book studies the fundamental aspects of many-body physics in quantum systems open to an external world. Recent remarkable developments in the observation and manipulation of quantum matter at the single-quantum level point to a new research area of open many-body systems, where interactions with an external observer and the environment play a major role. The first part of the book elucidates the influence of measurement backaction from an external observer, revealing new types of quantum critical phenomena and out-of-equilibrium dynamics beyond the conventional paradigm of closed systems. In turn, the second part develops a powerful theoretical approach to study the in- and out-of-equilibrium physics of an open quantum system strongly correlated with an external environment, where the entanglement between the system and the environment plays an essential role. The results obtained here offer essential theoretical results for understanding the many-body physics of quantum systems open to an external world, and can be applied to experimental systems in atomic, molecular and optical physics, quantum information science and condensed matter physics.
This book discusses non-equilibrium quantum many-body dynamics, recently explored in an analog quantum simulator of strongly correlated ultracold atoms. The first part presents a field-theoretical analysis of the experimental observability of the Higgs amplitude mode that emerges as a relativistic collective excitation near a quantum phase transition of superfluid Bose gases in an optical lattice potential. The author presents the dynamical susceptibilities to external driving of the microscopic parameters, taking into account a leading-order perturbative correction from quantum and thermal fluctuations and shows clear signatures of the Higgs mode in these observables. This is the first result that strongly supports the stability of the Higgs mode in three-dimensional optical lattices even in the presence of a spatially inhomogeneous confinement potential and paves the way for desktop observations of the Higgs mode. In the second part, the author applies the semi-classical truncated-Wigner approximation (TWA) to far-from-equilibrium quantum dynamics. Specifically, he considers the recent experiments on quantum-quench dynamics in a Bose-Hubbard quantum simulator. A direct comparison shows remarkable agreement between the numerical results from TWA and the experimental data. This result clearly indicates the potential of such a semi-classical approach in reliably simulating many-body systems using classical computers. The book also includes several chapters providing comprehensive reviews of the recent studies on cold-atomic quantum simulation and various theoretical methods, including the Schwinger-boson approach in strongly correlated systems and the phase-space semi-classical method for far-from-equilibrium quantum dynamics. These chapters are highly recommended to students and young researchers who are interested in semi-classical approaches in non-equilibrium quantum dynamics.
Since 1950, the Highway Capacity Manual has been a standard used in the planning, design, analysis, and operation of virtually any highway traffic facility in the United States. It has also been widely used around the globe and has inspired the development of similar manuals in other countries. This book is Volume II of a series on the conceptual and research origins of the methodologies found in the Highway Capacity Manual. It focuses on the most complex points in a traffic system: signalized and unsignalized intersections, and the concepts and methodologies developed over the years to model their operations. It also includes an overview of the fundamental concepts of capacity and level of service, particularly as applied to intersections. The historical roots of the manual and its contents are important to understanding current methodologies, and improving them in the future. As such, this book is a valuable resource for current and future users of the Highway Capacity Manual, as well as researchers and developers involved in advancing the state-of-the-art in the field.
In the high energy gas flows, associating high velocities and high
temperatures, physical and chemical processes such as molecular
vibrational excitation, dissociation, ionisation or various
reactions take palce and deeply influence the structure of the
flows. The characteristic times of these processes have the same
order of magnitude as aerodynamic characteristic times so that
these reactive media are generally in thermodynamic and chemical
non-equilibrium. This book presents a general introductory study of
these media. In the first part their fundamental statistical
aspects are described, starting from their discrete structure and
taking into account the interactions between elementary particles:
the transport phenomena, relaxation and kinetics as well as their
coupling are thus analysed and illustrated by many examples. The
second part deals with the macroscopic re-entry bodies. Finally the
experimental aspects of these flows, their simulations in shock
tube and shock tunnel are described as well as their application,
particularly in the aero- spatial domain.
Brownian motion - the incessant motion of small particles suspended in a fluid - is an important topic in statistical physics and physical chemistry. This book studies its origin in molecular scale fluctuations, its description in terms of random process theory and also in terms of statistical mechanics. A number of new applications of these descriptions to physical and chemical processes, as well as statistical mechanical derivations and the mathematical background are discussed in detail. Graduate students, lecturers, and researchers in statistical physics and physical chemistry will find this an interesting and useful reference work.
The dynamics of realistic Hamiltonian systems has unusual
microscopic features that are direct consequences of its fractional
space-time structure and its phase space topology. The book deals
with the fractality of the chaotic dynamics and kinetics, and also
includes material on non-ergodic and non-well-mixing Hamiltonian
dynamics. The book does not follow the traditional scheme of most
of today's literature on chaos. The intention of the author has
been to put together some of the most complex and yet open problems
on the general theory of chaotic systems. The importance of the
discussed issues and an understanding of their origin should
inspire students and researchers to touch upon some of the deepest
aspects of nonlinear dynamics.
This book takes the notions of adaptivity and learning from the realm of engineering into the realm of biology and natural processes. It introduces a Hebbian-LMS algorithm, an integration of unsupervised Hebbian learning and supervised LMS learning in neural networks, as a mathematical representation of a general theory for synaptic learning in the brain, and adaptation and functional control of homeostasis in living systems. Written in a language that is able to address students and scientists with different backgrounds, this book accompanies readers on a unique journey through various homeostatic processes in living organisms, such as body temperature control and synaptic plasticity, explaining how the Hebbian-LMS algorithm can help understand them, and suggesting some open questions for future research. It also analyses cell signalling pathways from an unusual perspective, where hormones and hormone receptors are shown to be regulated via the principles of the Hebbian-LMS algorithm. It further discusses addiction and pain, and various kinds of mood disorders alike, showing how they can be modelled with the Hebbian-LMS algorithm. For the first time, the Hebbian-LMS algorithm, which has been derived from a combination of Hebbian theory from the neuroscience field and the LMS algorithm from the engineering field of adaptive signal processing, becomes a potent model for understanding how biological regulation works. Thus, this book is breaking new ground in neuroscience by providing scientists with a general theory for how nature does control synaptic learning. It then goes beyond that, showing that the same principles apply to hormone-mediated regulation of physiological processes. In turn, the book tackles in more depth the concept of learning. It covers computer simulations and strategies for training neural networks with the Hebbian-LMS algorithm, demonstrating that the resulting algorithms are able to identify relationships between unknown input patterns. It shows how this can translate in useful ideas to understand human memory and design cognitive structures. All in all, this book offers an absolutely, unique, inspiring reading for biologists, physiologists, and engineers, paving the way for future studies on what we could call the nature's secret learning algorithm.
This book offers a comprehensive survey of basic elements of nuclear dynamics at low energies and discusses similarities to mesoscopic systems. It addresses systems with finite excitations of their internal degrees of freedom, so that their collective motion exhibits features typical for transport processes in small and isolated systems. The importance of quantum aspects is examined with respect to both the microscopic damping mechanism and the nature of the transport equations. The latter must account for the fact that the collective motion is self-sustained. This implies highly nonlinear couplings between internal and collective degrees of freedom --- different to assumptions made in treatments known in the literature. A critical discussion of the use of thermal concepts is presented. The book can be considered self-contained. It presents existing models, theories and theoretical tools, both from nuclear physics and other fields, which are relevant to an understanding of the observed physical phenomena.
This book is placed at the interface between string theory and elementary particle physics and shows novel results in the search for a heterotic string vacuum that reproduces those matter particles and interactions observed in our universe. The author provides a systematic classification of potentially realistic heterotic covariant lattice vacua, which possess a lower number of moduli fields when compared to conventional compactification methods, by means of number theoretical methods. These methods, while well known to the mathematics community, have not yet found many applications to physics. They are introduced to the degree necessary to understand the computations carried out throughout this work. Furthermore, explicit covariant lattice models with particularly interesting properties are analyzed in detail. Finally, new light is shed on the relation between covariant lattice models and asymmetric orbifold compactifications, the result being a concrete correspondence between certain types of asymmetric orbifolds and those classified covariant lattices.
This book is dedicated to Professor Leonid V Keldysh. His brilliant contributions to condensed matter physics include the Franz-Keldysh effect, an electron-hole liquid, the nonequilibrium (Keldysh) diagram technique, Bose-Einstein condensation (of excitons) and a metal-dielectric'' transition, acoustically-induced superlattices, multi-photon transitions and impact ionization in solids. In many respects, his work influenced and formed the paradigm of modern condensed matter physics. As a result, many famous researchers in the field have enthusiastically provided unique contributions to the book.
This thesis presents the application of non-perturbative, or functional, renormalization group to study the physics of critical stationary states in systems out-of-equilibrium. Two different systems are thereby studied. The first system is the diffusive epidemic process, a stochastic process which models the propagation of an epidemic within a population. This model exhibits a phase transition peculiar to out-of-equilibrium, between a stationary state where the epidemic is extinct and one where it survives. The present study helps to clarify subtle issues about the underlying symmetries of this process and the possible universality classes of its phase transition. The second system is fully developed homogeneous isotropic and incompressible turbulence. The stationary state of this driven-dissipative system shows an energy cascade whose phenomenology is complex, with partial scale-invariance, intertwined with what is called intermittency. In this work, analytical expressions for the space-time dependence of multi-point correlation functions of the turbulent state in 2- and 3-D are derived. This result is noteworthy in that it does not rely on phenomenological input except from the Navier-Stokes equation and that it becomes exact in the physically relevant limit of large wave-numbers. The obtained correlation functions show how scale invariance is broken in a subtle way, related to intermittency corrections.
This book contains contributions presented at the 12th International Conference on Complex Networks (CompleNet), 24-26 May 2021. CompleNet is an international conference on complex networks that brings together researchers and practitioners from diverse disciplines-from sociology, biology, physics, and computer science-who share a passion to better understand the interdependencies within and across systems. CompleNet is a venue to discuss ideas and findings about all types networks, from biological, to technological, to informational and social. It is this interdisciplinary nature of complex networks that CompleNet aims to explore and celebrate.
This book explores recent developments in theoretical research and data analysis of real-world complex systems, organized in three parts, namely Entropy, information, and complexity functions Multistability, oscillations, and rhythmic synchronization Diffusions, rotation, and convection in fluids The collection of works devoted to the memory of Professor Valentin Afraimovich provides a deep insight into the recent developments in complexity science by introducing new concepts, methods, and applications in nonlinear dynamical systems covering physical problems and mathematical modelling relevant to economics, genetics, engineering vibrations, as well as classic problems in physics, fluid and climate dynamics, and urban dynamics. The book facilitates a better understanding of the mechanisms and phenomena in nonlinear dynamics and develops the corresponding mathematical theory to apply nonlinear design to practical engineering. It can be read by mathematicians, physicists, complex systems scientists, IT specialists, civil engineers, data scientists, and urban planners.
This edited volume provides an essential resource for urban morphology, the study of urban forms and structures, offering a much-needed mathematical perspective. Experts on a variety of mathematical modeling techniques provide new insights into specific aspects of the field, such as street networks, sustainability, and urban growth. The chapters collected here make a clear case for the importance of tools and methods to understand, model, and simulate the formation and evolution of cities. The chapters cover a wide variety of topics in urban morphology, and are conveniently organized by their mathematical principles. The first part covers fractals and focuses on how self-similar structures sort themselves out through competition. This is followed by a section on cellular automata, and includes chapters exploring how they generate fractal forms. Networks are the focus of the third part, which includes street networks and other forms as well. Chapters that examine complexity and its relation to urban structures are in part four.The fifth part introduces a variety of other quantitative models that can be used to study urban morphology. In the book's final section, a series of multidisciplinary commentaries offers readers new ways of looking at the relationship between mathematics and urban forms. Being the first book on this topic, Mathematics of Urban Morphology will be an invaluable resource for applied mathematicians and anyone studying urban morphology. Additionally, anyone who is interested in cities from the angle of economics, sociology, architecture, or geography will also find it useful. "This book provides a useful perspective on the state of the art with respect to urban morphology in general and mathematics as tools and frames to disentangle the ideas that pervade arguments about form and function in particular. There is much to absorb in the pages that follow and there are many pointers to ways in which these ideas can be linked to related theories of cities, urban design and urban policy analysis as well as new movements such as the role of computation in cities and the idea of the smart city. Much food for thought. Read on, digest, enjoy." From the foreword by Michael Batty |
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