Complexity from Microscopic to Macroscopic Scales: Coherence and Large Deviations / Edition 1

by A.T. Skjeltorp, Tamas Vicsek

Overview

Many mesoscopic systems display ‘adaptive' behaviour - changes in some physical property that results from a small change in an internal or external driving force. There is a kind of progression in adaptive phenomena, from quantum mesoscopics to complex, evolved cooperative systems and large scale events like turbulence. The field of mesoscopic magnetism, especially quantum coherence and quantum tunnelling in spin systems, and the coupling between mesoscopic magnetism and mesoscopic transport is currently a very active area of solid state physics. ‘Dephasing' is an important concept in mesoscopic systems like these. A basic question is the limit at which quantum mechanics breaks down and what it can be replaced with. Another interesting crossover is that between complexity and large excursions or events, with turbulence as a prototype example. The book also contains a discussion of finance. Qualitatively speaking, turbulence and financial markets are apparently similar, so our understanding of turbulence may be relevant to understanding price fluctuations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781402006340
Publisher:	Springer Netherlands
Publication date:	05/31/2002
Series:	NATO Science Series II: Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry , #63
Edition description:	Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 2002
Pages:	230
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.45(h) x 0.02(d)

Table of Contents

Physics of computation: From classical to quantum.- Irreversibility and dephasing from vacuum fluctuations.- Of decoherent electrons and disordered conductors.- Spintronics and quantum dots for quantum computing and quantum communication.- Spin-polarized electronics using dilute magnetic semiconductors.- The evolution of evolutionary engines.- Computational complexity in physics.- When topology meets dynamics: Braids of particle motion and chirality.- Turbulence and financial market data analyzed with respect to their scale dependent complexity.- Collective behaviour of people.- Where is Adam Smith’s invisible hand?.- Cellular model of superconducting vortex dynamics.

Editorial Reviews

The 16th meeting of the biannual conference on cooperative phenomena and phase transitions addressed the current experimental and theoretical knowledge of the physical organizing principles of a collection of many interacting particles or entities at levels ranging from the microscopic realms described by quantum mechanics to the macroscopic world that can hit you in the head. Among the 13 topics are the physics of computation, the evolution of evolutionary engines, braids of particle motion and chirality, turbulence and financial market data analyzed with respect to their scale-dependent complexity, and the collective behavior of people. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR