Non-Equilibrium Phase Transitions : Volume 1: Absorbing Phase Transitions Hardback

by Malte Henkel, Haye Hinrichsen, Sven Lubeck

Part of the Theoretical and Mathematical Physics series

Hardback

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"The career structure and funding of the universities [...] currently strongly d- courages academics and faculties from putting any investment into teaching - there are no career or ?nancial rewards in it.

This is a great pity, because [...] it is the need toengage indialogue,and to makethings logicaland clear,that istheprimary defence against obscurantism and abstraction. " B. Ward-Perkins, The fall of Rome, Oxford (2005) This is the ?rst volume of a planned two-volume treatise on non-equilibrium phase transitions.

While such a topic might sound rather special and a- demic, non-equilibrium critical phenomena occur in much wider contexts than their equilibrium counterparts, and without having to ?ne-tune th- modynamic variables to their 'critical' values in each case.

As a matter of fact, most systems in Nature are out of equilibrium.

Given that the theme of non-equilibrium phase transitions of second order is wide enough to amount essentially to a treatment of almost all theoretical aspects of non-equilibrium many-body physics, a selection of topics is required to keep such a project within a manageable length.

Therefore, Vol. 1 discusses a particular kind of non-equilibrium phase transitions, namely those between an active, ?- tuating state and absorbing states.

Volume 2 (to be written by one of us (MH) with M. Pleimling) will be devoted to ageing phenomena.