Computational Statistical Physics: From Billiards to Monte Carlo

✍ Scribed by Professor Karl Heinz Hoffmann, Professor Michael Schreiber (auth.)

• Publisher: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 311
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

In recent years statistical physics has made significant progress as a result of advances in numerical techniques. While good textbooks exist on the general aspects of statistical physics, the numerical methods and the new developments based on large-scale computing are not usually adequately presented. In this book 16 experts describe the application of methods of statistical physics to various areas in physics: disordered materials, quasicrystals, semiconductors, ... and also to other areas beyond physics, such as financial markets, game theory, evolution, and traffic planning, in which statistical physics has recently become significant. In this way the universality of the underlying concepts and methods such as fractals, random matrix theory, time series, neural networks, evolutionary algorithms, becomes clear. The topics are covered by introductory, tutorial presentations.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages I-XV
Game Theory and Statistical Mechanics....Pages 1-14
Chaotic Billiards....Pages 15-36
Combinatorial Optimization and High Dimensional Billiards....Pages 37-56
The Statistical Physics of Energy Landscapes: From Spin Glasses to Optimization....Pages 57-76
Optimization of Production Lines by Methods from Statistical Physics....Pages 77-96
Predicting and Generating Time Series by Neural Networks: An Investigation Using Statistical Physics....Pages 97-111
Statistical Physics of Cellular Automata Models for Traffic Flow....Pages 113-126
Self-Organized Criticality in Forest-Fire Models....Pages 127-140
Nonlinear Dynamics of Active Brownian Particles....Pages 141-151
Financial Time Series and Statistical Mechanics....Pages 153-168
‘Go with the Winners’ Simulations....Pages 169-190
Aperiodicity and Disorder — Do They Play a Role?....Pages 191-210
Quantum Phase Transitions....Pages 211-226
Introduction to Energy Level Statistics....Pages 227-239
Randomness in Optical Spectra of Semiconductor Nanostructures....Pages 241-257
Characterization of the Metal-Insulator Transition in the Anderson Model of Localization....Pages 259-278
Percolation, Renormalization and Quantum Hall Transition....Pages 279-294
Back Matter....Pages 295-301

✦ Subjects

Statistical Physics, Dynamical Systems and Complexity;Numerical and Computational Physics;Statistics for Engineering, Physics, Computer Science, Chemistry and Earth Sciences