Stefan Teufel – författare

Separation of scales plays a fundamental role in the understanding of the dynamical behaviour of complex systems in physics and other natural sciences. A prominent example is the Born-Oppenheimer approximation in molecular dynamics. This book focuses on a recent approach to adiabatic perturbation theory, which emphasizes the role of effective equations of motion and the separation of the adiabatic limit from the semiclassical limit.

A detailed introduction gives an overview of the subject and makes the later chapters accessible also to readers less familiar with the material. Although the general mathematical theory based on pseudodifferential calculus is presented in detail, there is an emphasis on concrete and relevant examples from physics. Applications range from molecular dynamics to the dynamics of electrons in a crystal and from the quantum mechanics of partially confined systems to Dirac particles and nonrelativistic QED.

Bohmian Mechanics was formulated in 1952 by David Bohm as a complete theory of quantum phenomena based on a particle picture. It was promoted some decades later by John S. Bell, who, intrigued by the manifestly nonlocal structure of the theory, was led to his famous Bell''s inequalities. Experimental tests of the inequalities verified that nature is indeed nonlocal. Bohmian mechanics has since then prospered as the straightforward completion of quantum mechanics. This book provides a systematic introduction to Bohmian mechanics and to the mathematical abstractions of quantum mechanics, which range from the self-adjointness of the Schrödinger operator to scattering theory. It explains how the quantum formalism emerges when Boltzmann''s ideas about statistical mechanics are applied to Bohmian mechanics. The book is self-contained, mathematically rigorous and an ideal starting point for a fundamental approach to quantum mechanics. It will appeal to students and newcomers to the field, as well as to established scientists seeking a clear exposition of the theory.