In And Out Of Equilibrium 2

This volume consists of a collection of invited articles, written by some of the most distinguished probabilists, most of whom have been personally responsible for advances in the various subfields of probability.

This volume consists of a collection of invited articles, written by some of the most distinguished probabilists, most of whom have been personally responsible for advances in the various subfields of probability.

This volume consists of a collection of invited articles, written by some of the most distinguished probabilists, most of whom have been personally responsible for advances in the various subfields of probability.

The past decade has seen unprecedented developments in the understanding of relativistic fluid dynamics in and out of equilibrium, with connections to astrophysics, cosmology, string theory, quantum information, nuclear physics and condensed matter physics. Romatschke and Romatschke offer a powerful new framework for fluid dynamics, exploring its connections to kinetic theory, gauge/gravity duality and thermal quantum field theory. Numerical algorithms to solve the equations of motion of relativistic dissipative fluid dynamics as well as applications to various systems are discussed. In particular, the book contains a comprehensive review of the theory background necessary to apply fluid dynamics to simulate relativistic nuclear collisions, including comparisons of fluid simulation results to experimental data for relativistic lead-lead, proton-lead and proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The book is an excellent resource for students and researchers working in nuclear physics, astrophysics, cosmology, quantum many-body systems and string theory.

For more than two decades percolation theory, random walks, interacting parti cle systems and topics related to statistical mechanics have experienced inten sive growth. In the last several years, especially remarkable progress has been made in a number of directions, such as: Wulff constructions above two dimen sions for percolation, Potts and Ising models, classification of random walks in random environments, better understanding of fluctuations in two dimen sional growth processes, the introduction and remarkable uses of the Stochastic Loewner Equation, the rigorous derivation of exact intersection exponents for planar Brownian motion, and finally, the proof of conformal invariance for crit ical percolation scaling limits on the triangular lattice. It was thus a fortuitous time to bring together researchers, including many personally responsible for these advances, in the framework of the IVth Brazilian School of Probability, held at Mambucaba on August 14-19,2000. This School, first envisioned and organized by IMPA's probability group in 1997, has since developed into an annual meeting with an almost constant format: it usually offers three advanced courses delivered by prominent scientists, combined with a high-level conference. This volume contains invited articles associated with that meeting, and we hope it will provide the reader with an accurate impression regarding the current state of affairs in these important fields of probability theory.

“The importance of knowledge consists not only in its direct practical utility but also in the fact the it promotes a widely contemplative habit of mind; on this ground, utility is to be found in much of the knowledge that is nowadays labelled ‘useless’. ” Bertrand Russel, In Praise of Idleness, London (1935) “Why are scientists in so many cases so deeply interested in their work ? Is it merely because it is useful ? It is only necessary to talk to such scientists to discover that the utilitarian possibilities of their work are generally of secondary interest to them. Something else is primary. ” David Bohm, On creativity, Abingdon (1996) In this volume, the dynamical critical behaviour of many-body systems far from equilibrium is discussed. Therefore, the intrinsic properties of the - namics itself, rather than those of the stationary state, are in the focus of 1 interest. Characteristically, far-from-equilibrium systems often display - namical scaling, even if the stationary state is very far from being critical. A 1 As an example of a non-equilibrium phase transition, with striking practical c- sequences, consider the allotropic change of metallic ?-tin to brittle ?-tin. At o equilibrium, the gray ?-Sn becomes more stable than the silvery ?-Sn at 13. 2 C. Kinetically, the transition between these two solid forms of tin is rather slow at higher temperatures. It starts from small islands of ?-Sn, the growth of which proceeds through an auto-catalytic reaction.

Stemming from the IHP trimester "Stochastic Dynamics Out of Equilibrium", this collection of contributions focuses on aspects of nonequilibrium dynamics and its ongoing developments. It is common practice in statistical mechanics to use models of large interacting assemblies governed by stochastic dynamics. In this context "equilibrium" is understood as stochastically (time) reversible dynamics with respect to a prescribed Gibbs measure. Nonequilibrium dynamics correspond on the other hand to irreversible evolutions, where fluxes appear in physical systems, and steady-state measures are unknown. The trimester, held at the Institut Henri Poincaré (IHP) in Paris from April to July 2017, comprised various events relating to three domains (i) transport in non-equilibrium statistical mechanics; (ii) the design of more efficient simulation methods; (iii) life sciences. It brought together physicists, mathematicians from many domains, computer scientists, as well as researchers working at the interface between biology, physics and mathematics. The present volume is indispensable reading for researchers and Ph.D. students working in such areas.

Out-of-Equilibrium (Supra)molecular Systems and Materials A must-have resource that covers everything from out-of-equilibrium chemical systems to active materials Out-of-Equilibrium (Supra)molecular Systems and Materials presents a comprehensive overview of the synthetic approaches that use molecular and supramolecular bonds in various out-of-equilibrium situations. With contributions from noted experts on the topic, the text contains information on the design of dissipative chemical systems that adapt their structures in space and time when fueled by an external source of energy. The contributors also examine molecules, nanoscale objects and materials that can produce mechanical work based on molecular machines. Additionally, the book explores living supramolecular polymers that can be trapped in kinetically stable states, as well as out-of-equilibrium chemical networks and oscillators that are important to understand the emergence of complex behaviors and, in particular, the origin of life. This important book: Offers comprehensive coverage of fields from design of out-of-equilibrium self-assemblies to molecular machines and active materials Presents information on a highly emerging and interdisciplinary topic Includes contributions from internationally renowned scientists Written for chemists, physical chemists, biochemists, material scientists, Out-of-Equilibrium (Supra)molecular Systems and Materials is an indispensable resource written by top scientists in the field.

In this chapter the topic of this book is introduced. Section 1. 1 provides a brief and rather general motivation for the scientific project undertaken here. Interest groups are a very popular object of scientific inquiry, and they received already considerable research attention from scholars in political science, as well as from researchers in economics. Necessarily, then, this book adds to a literature which is already quite developed. A detailed positioning in this literature of the theoretical material presented in this monograph will be given in Chapter 2. This second chapter will also, by means of a review of the empirical literature, provide a more general overview of the issues deemed to be important when studying the influence of interest groups on public policy. The outline of the entire book is described in greater detail in Section 1. 2. As most issues involved are more easily presented in later chapters, this introductory chapter is kept brief. 1. 1 MOTIVATION Substantial political power is often attributed to interest groups. Examples abound in both the economics and political science literature, as well as in journalistic accounts and popular publications. On many occasions the authors express concerns about the negative impact of interest groups on the democratic quality of government. "The interests of a small group are served at the expense of the interests of the general public, the taxpayers!", is an often heard popular complaint.