This is a Festschrift compiled in honor of Professor Peter Suranyi, Professor Emeritus, University of Cincinnati. In a long career spanning almost 60 years, Professor Suranyi has made valuable contributions in many areas of theoretical physics, especially in the fields of strong interaction physics, quantum field theory, particle physics, statistical mechanics, lattice field theory, condensed matter physics, and particle cosmology. His important contributions range from analysis of Regge poles in quantum field theory, work on Reggeon field theory, developing improved perturbation theory methods and numerical simulation techniques, analyzing rigidity percolation and molecular clustering in network glasses, to his recent work on Bose condensate dark matter. This volume is our way of paying tribute to his scientific achievements, mentoring prowess, and his rigorous outlook on theoretical physics.

Self-duality greatly reduces the mathematical difficulties of a theory but it is also a notion of considerable physical significance. The new class of self-dual Chern-Simons theories discussed in detail in this book arise in the context of anyonic quantum field theory and have applications to models such as the quantum Hall effect, anyonic superconductivity, and Aharonov-Bohm scattering. There are also interesting connections with the theory of integrable models. The author presents the abelian and non-abelian models for relativistic and non-relativistic realizations of the self-dual Chern-Simons theories and finishes with some applications in quantum physics. The book is written for advanced students and researchers in mathematical, particle, and condensed matter physics.