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| Author(s) |
Bishop, A.R. (ed.) Campbell, D.K. (ed.) Kumar, P. (ed.) Trullinger, S.E. (ed.) |
|---|---|
| Title | Nonlinearity in condensed matter. Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Conference, Center for Nonlinear Structures, Los Alamos, New Mexico, 5-9 May 1986 |
| Publisher | Springer |
| Year of publication | 1987 |
| Reviewed by | Heinz Ulbricht |
Nonlinearities are reasons for many effects in condensed matter, e.g. solitons, low-dimensional magnetism, nonlinear optics, nonequilibrium systems and selforganization. A lot of papers and books in this field demonstrates the impetuous development of this part of science.
The present volume includes the contributions to the conference, mentioned above in the title. In more than forty reports the authors describe both general problems of theoretical and experimental techniques and special results of this field. The nine parts of the book are dedicated to the following topics: Historical perspective; Low-dimensional magnetism; Conducting polymers; Experimental techniques; Theoretical techniques; Structural phase transitions; Spin-glasses and random field systems; Frustrated, incommensurate, and nonequilibriune systems; Summary.
From the series of contributions to call special attention to a particular one, it means to replace other papers. Nevertheless the introductory review by R. Landauer are mentioned here just as the summary by G. Baym. With interesting examples (chaos, nonlinear electrical behaviour, noise in metastable states, small metallic samples etc.) mutual relations and prospects for the future are discussed here.
Each contribution has numerous references and gives suggestions for further studies. There is only an index of contributors but no subject index. As is so often the case nowadays, the volume was produced from camera ready material, so the typeset is uneven.
The book is useful for specialists and should be at hand in relevant libraries. For nonspecialists or for introduction the study of the volume wouldn't be expedient.