This volume begins with a description of Alladi Ramakrishnan's remarkable scientific career and his grand vision that led to the creation of The Institute of Mathematical Sciences (MATSCIENCE), in Madras (now Chennai), India, in 1962. The lists of his research publications, his PhD students, and other relevant facts relating to his eventful career are included. The inclusion of both research and survey articles by leading mathematicians, statisticians, and physicists who got to know Alladi Ramakrishnan over the years and admired his significant contributions to research and to the scientific profession, have been written and dedicated in this volume to Ramakrishnan's memory.

This volume is a review on coherent states and some of their applications. The usefulness of the concept of coherent states is illustrated by considering specific examples from the fields of physics and mathematical physics. Particular emphasis is given to a general historical introduction, general continuous representations, generalized coherent states, classical and quantum correspondence, path integrals and canonical formalism. Applications are considered in quantum mechanics, optics, quantum chemistry, atomic physics, statistical physics, nuclear physics, particle physics and cosmology. A selection of original papers is reprinted.

This pioneering book addresses the question: Are the standard procedures of canonical quantization fully satisfactory, or is there more to learn about assigning a proper quantum system to a given classical system? As shown in this book, the answer to this question is: The standard procedures of canonical quantization are not the whole story!This book offers alternative quantization procedures that complete the story of quantization. The initial chapters are designed to present the new procedures in a clear and simple manner for general readers. As is necessary, systems that exhibit acceptable results with conventional quantization lead to the same results when the new procedures are used for them. However, later chapters examine selected models that lead to unacceptable results when quantized conventionally. Fortunately, these same models lead to acceptable results when the new quantization procedures are used.

In the spirit of Alladi Ramakrishnan's profound interest and contributions to three fields of science - Mathematics, Statistics, and Physics - this volume contains invited surveys and research articles from prominent members of these communities who also knew Ramakrishnan personally and greatly respected his influence in these areas of science. Historical photos, telegrams, and biographical narratives of Alladi Ramakrishnan's illustrious career of special interest are included as well.

This text describes novel treatments of quantum problems using enhanced quantization procedures. When treated conventionally, certain systems yield trivial and unacceptable results. This book describes enhanced procedures, generally involving extended correspondence rules for the association of a classical and a quantum theory, which, when applied to such systems, yield nontrivial and acceptable results. The text begins with a review of classical mechanics, Hilbert space, quantum mechanics, and scalar quantum field theory. Next, analytical skills are further developed, a special class of models is studied, and a discussion of continuous and discontinuous perturbations is presented. Later chapters cover two further classes of models both of which entail discontinuous perturbations. The final chapter offers a brief summary, concluding with a conjecture regarding interacting covariant scalar quantum field theories. Symmetry is repeatedly used as a tool to help develop solutions for simple and complex problems alike. Challenging exercises and detailed references are included.

This graduate-level text employs a formal, classical viewpoint to survey the fundamentals of quantum optics. Its coverage includes the quantum theory of partial coherence and the nature of the relations between classical and quantum theories of coherence. Students and professional physicists interested in intensity interferometry, photon counting correlations, and lasers will find this volume extremely helpful.
Topics include partially coherent light, photoelectric counting distributions, dynamical determination of statistical description, and equations of motion and coherent-state representation of the electromagnetic field. Additional subjects encompass quantum theory of optical correlation phenomena, special state of radiation fields, and intensity interferometry in quantum optics. The text offers particularly complete treatments of properties of the coherent states and of the "diagonal" representations for statistical states. These methods are applied to studies of coherence, coincident counting rates, and counting distributions for a number of physically significant states, including thermal and laser-like fields.

This text describes novel treatments of quantum problems using enhanced quantization procedures. When treated conventionally, certain systems yield trivial and unacceptable results. This book describes enhanced procedures, generally involving extended correspondence rules for the association of a classical and a quantum theory, which, when applied to such systems, yield nontrivial and acceptable results. The text begins with a review of classical mechanics, Hilbert space, quantum mechanics, and scalar quantum field theory. Next, analytical skills are further developed, a special class of models is studied, and a discussion of continuous and discontinuous perturbations is presented. Later chapters cover two further classes of models both of which entail discontinuous perturbations. The final chapter offers a brief summary, concluding with a conjecture regarding interacting covariant scalar quantum field theories. Symmetry is repeatedly used as a tool to help develop solutions for simple and complex problems alike. Challenging exercises and detailed references are included.