This book is centered on the two minicourses conducted by C Liverani (Rome) and J Sjoestrand (Paris) on the return to equilibrium in classical statistical mechanics and the location of quantum resonances via semiclassical analysis, respectively. The other contributions cover related topics of classical and quantum mechanics, such as scattering theory, classical and quantum statistical mechanics, dynamical localization, quantum chaos, ergodic theory and KAM techniques.
This book is centered on the two minicourses conducted by C Liverani (Rome) and J Sjoestrand (Paris) on the return to equilibrium in classical statistical mechanics and the location of quantum resonances via semiclassical analysis, respectively. The other contributions cover related topics of classical and quantum mechanics, such as scattering theory, classical and quantum statistical mechanics, dynamical localization, quantum chaos, ergodic theory and KAM techniques.
Quantum chaos is becoming a very wide field that ranges from experiments to theoretical physics and purely mathematical issues. In view of this grand span, Nobel Symposium 116 focused on experiments and theory, and attempted to encourage interplay between them. There was emphasis on the interdisciplinary character of the subject, involving a broad range of subjects in physics, including condensed matter physics, nuclear physics, atomic physics and elementary particle physics. The physics involved in quantum chaos has much in common with acoustics, microwaves, optics, etc., and therefore the symposium also covered aspects of wave chaos in this broader sense. The program was structured according to the following areas: manifestations of classical chaos in quantum systems; transport phenomena; quantal spectra in terms of periodic orbits; semiclassical and random matrix approaches; quantum chaos in interacting systems; chaos and tunneling; wave-dynamic chaos. This important book constitutes the proceedings of the symposium.
Progress in atomic physics has been so vigorous during the past decade that one is hard pressed to follow all the new developments. In the early 1990s the first atom interferometers opened a new field in which we have been able to use the wave nature of atoms to probe fundamental quantum me chanics questions as well as to make precision measurements. Coming fast on the heels of this development was the demonstration of Bose Einstein condensation in dilute atomic vapors which intensified research interest in studying the wave nature of matter, especially in a domain in which "macro scopic" quantum effects (vortices, stimulated scattering of atomic beams) are visible. At the same time there has been much progress in our understanding of the behavior of waves (notably electromagnetic) in complex media, both periodic and disordered. An obvious topic of speculation and probably of future research is whether any new insight or applications will develop if one examines the behavior of de Broglie waves in analogous situations. Finally, our ability to manipulate atoms has allowed us not only to create macroscopically occupied quantum states but also to exercise fine control over the quantum states of a small number of atoms. This has advanced to the study of quantum entanglement and its relation to the theory of measurement and the theory of information. The 1990s have also seen an explosion of interest in an exciting potential application of this fine control: quantum computation and quantum cryptography.
Quantum cosmology has gradually emerged as the focus of devoted research, mostly within the second half of last century. As we entered the 21st century, the subject is still very much alive. The outcome of results and templates for investigation have been enlarged, some very recent and fascinating. Hence this book, where the authors bequeath some of their views, as they believe this current century is the one where quantum cosmology will be fully accomplished.Though some aspects are not discussed (namely, supersymmetry or loop structures), there are perhaps a set of challenges that in the authors' opinion remain, some since the dawn of quantum mechanics and applications to cosmology. Others could have been selected, at the readers' discretion and opinion. The authors put herewith a chart and directions to explore, some of which they have worked on or aimed to work more, in the twilight of their current efforts. Their confidence is that someone will follow in their trails, venturing in discovering the proper answer, by being able to formulate the right questions beforehand. The authors' shared foresight is that such discoveries, from those formulations, will be attained upon endorsing the routes within the challenges herewith indicated.
The Feynman integral is considered as an intuitive representation of quantum mechanics showing the complex quantum phenomena in a language comprehensible at a classical level. It suggests that the quantum transition amplitude arises from classical mechanics by an average over various interfering paths. The classical picture suggested by the Feynman integral may be illusory. By most physicists the path integral is usually treated as a convenient formal mathematical tool for a quick derivation of useful approximations in quantum mechanics. Results obtained in the formalism of Feynman integrals receive a mathematical justification by means of other (usually much harder) methods. In such a case the rigour is achieved at the cost of losing the intuitive classical insight. The aim of this book is to formulate a mathematical theory of the Feynman integral literally in the way it was expressed by Feynman, at the cost of complexifying the configuration space. In such a case the Feynman integral can be expressed by a probability measure. The equations of quantum mechanics can be formulated as equations of random classical mechanics on a complex configuration space. The opportunity of computer simulations shows an immediate advantage of such a formulation. A mathematical formulation of the Feynman integral should not be considered solely as an academic question of mathematical rigour in theoretical physics.
Covering both classical and quantum models, nonlinear integrable systems are of considerable theoretical and practical interest, with applications over a wide range of topics, including water waves, pin models, nonlinear optics, correlated electron systems, plasma physics, and reaction-diffusion processes. Comprising one part on classical theories
This important book explains how the technique of Witten Laplacians may be useful in statistical mechanics. It considers the problem of analyzing the decay of correlations, after presenting its origin in statistical mechanics. In addition, it compares the Witten Laplacian approach with other techniques, such as the transfer matrix approach and its semiclassical analysis. The author concludes by providing a complete proof of the uniform Log-Sobolev inequality.
The book provides a comprehensive overview on the state of the art of the quantum part of mathematical physics. In particular, it contains contributions to the spectral theory of Schrödinger and random operators, quantum field theory, relativistic quantum mechanics and interacting many-body systems.It also presents an overview on the achievements in mathematical physics since the last conference QMath11 held at Hradec Kralove, Czechia in 2010.
This Festschrift had its origins in a conference called SimonFest held at Caltech, March 27-31, 2006, to honor Barry Simon's 60th birthday. It is not a proceedings volume in the usual sense since the emphasis of the majority of the contributions is on reviews of the state of the art of certain fields, with particular focus on recent developments and open problems. The bulk of the articles in this Festschrift are of this survey form, and a few review Simon's contributions to aparticular area. Part 1 contains surveys in the areas of Quantum Field Theory, Statistical Mechanics, Nonrelativistic Two-Body and $N$-Body Quantum Systems, Resonances, Quantum Mechanics with Electric and Magnetic Fields, and the Semiclassical Limit. Part 2 contains surveys in the areas of Random andErgodic Schrodinger Operators, Singular Continuous Spectrum, Orthogonal Polynomials, and Inverse Spectral Theory. In several cases, this collection of surveys portrays both the history of a subject and its current state of the art. A substantial part of the contributions to this Festschrift are survey articles on the state of the art of certain areas with special emphasis on open problems. This will benefit graduate students as well as researchers who want to get a quick, yet comprehensiveintroduction into an area covered in this volume.
