Peking University-world Scientific Advanced Physics Series – serie

"The book is highly recommended as a reference for advanced graduate students and scholars involved in geometric analysis of membranes and other elastic surfaces. Valuable techniques may be learned from the book’s model constructions and sequential derivations and presentations of governing equations. Detailed analysis and solutions enable the reader with an increased understanding of the physical characteristics of membranes in liquid crystal phases such as their preferred shapes."Contemporary PhysicsThis is the second edition of the book Geometric Methods in Elastic Theory of Membranes in Liquid Crystal Phases published by World Scientific in 1999. This book gives a comprehensive treatment of the conditions of mechanical equilibrium and the deformation of membranes as a surface problem in differential geometry. It is aimed at readers engaging in the field of investigation of the shape formation of membranes in liquid crystalline state with differential geometry. The material chosen in this book is mainly limited to analytical results. The main changes in this second edition are: we add a chapter (Chapter 4) to explain how to calculate variational problems on a surface with a free edge by using a new mathematical tool — moving frame method and exterior differential forms — and how to derive the shape equation and boundary conditions for open lipid membranes through this new method. In addition, we include the recent concise work on chiral lipid membranes as a section in Chapter 5, and in Chapter 6 we mention some topics that we have not fully investigated but are also important to geometric theory of membrane elasticity.

This book provides a relatively complete introduction to the methods used in computational condensed matter. A wide range of electronic structure theories are introduced, including traditional quantum chemistry methods, density functional theory, many-body perturbation theory, and more. Molecular dynamics simulations are also discussed, with extensions to enhanced sampling and free-energy calculation techniques including umbrella sampling, meta-dynamics, integrated tempering sampling, etc. As a further extension beyond the standard Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics, some simulation techniques for the description of quantum nuclear effects are also covered, based on Feynman's path-integral representation of quantum mechanics. The book aims to help beginning graduate students to set up a framework of the concepts they should know before tackling the physical/chemical problems they will face in their research.

Symbolic dynamics is a coarse-grained description of dynamics. It has been a long-studied chapter of the mathematical theory of dynamical systems, but its abstract formulation has kept many practitioners of physical sciences and engineering from appreciating its simplicity, beauty, and power. At the same time, symbolic dynamics provides almost the only rigorous way to understand global systematics of periodic and, especially, chaotic motion in dynamical systems. In a sense, everyone who enters the field of chaotic dynamics should begin with the study of symbolic dynamics. However, this has not been an easy task for non-mathematicians. On one hand, the method of symbolic dynamics has been developed to such an extent that it may well become a practical tool in studying chaotic dynamics, both on computers and in laboratories. On the other hand, most of the existing literature on symbolic dynamics is mathematics-oriented. This book is an attempt at partially filling up this apparent gap by emphasizing the applied aspects of symbolic dynamics without mathematical rigor.

This book derives from the content of graduate courses on cold atomic gases, taught at the Renmin University of China and at the University of Science and Technology of China. It provides a brief review on the history and current research frontiers in the field of ultracold atomic gases, as well as basic theoretical description of few- and many-body physics in the system. Starting from the basics such as atomic structure, atom-light interaction, laser cooling and trapping, the book then moves on to focus on the treatment of ultracold Fermi gases, before turning to topics in quantum simulation using cold atoms in optical lattices.The book would be ideal not only for professionals and researchers, but also for familiarizing junior graduate students with the subject and aiding them in their preparation for future study and research in the field.

The book is devoted to advancing and developing the frontiers of superconductivity; in particular, the theory of the Diagrammatic Iteration Approach (DIA), described in Chapter 1, is unique in the community of superconductivity.The application of DIA to electron correlation effects has allowed the tough issue of strongly-coupled electron systems to be solved, which is important for high-temperature superconductivity (HTS). DIA, when applied to a layered two-dimensional system, gives rise to marvelous outcomes that can explain all the anomalies in the normal state of HTS, and leads to a transition temperature that is dependent on quantities including the dielectric constant, electron band mass and spacing between layers. This then serves as a quantifiable guide on how to make ideal superconductors. Moreover, in such a scenario, the mechanisms of low- and high-temperature superconductivity can be unified on the basis of repulsive Coulomb interactions between electrons.The book contains rich first-hand information on experiments at the frontiers of superconductivity, as well as on relevant applications of such cutting-edge developments. For instance, Jiasu Wang, co-author of the chapter discussing the HTS Maglev train, is the person who completed the world's first HTS Maglev train. Thus, the draw of this book lies not only in its ability to marry theory, experiment and application, but also in its inclusion of research from prestigious experts of the field.

Understanding the mechanism of the high-temperature superconductors has been a very important topic in condensed matter physics. Researchers have been trying to explain the role of electron-phonon interaction (EPI) in cuprates. Some important properties of the cuprates could not be explained by conventional BCS theory. This book contains the experimental and theoretical studies on the EPI. The experimental part covers the results of angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), isotopic effect, elastic neutron scattering study of electron-phonon, lattice role and so on. The theoretical part covers the electron-phonon, polaron and bipolaron, effect of lattice, fine structure in the tunnelling spectra of electron-doped cuprates, identification of the bulk pairing symmetry in high-temperature superconductors.Students and researchers interested in high-temperature superconductors, especially the EPI in cuprates will find this title very useful.

This book is indexed in Chemical Abstracts ServiceResearchers working at the frontier of high-Tc Superconductors have reviewed the development in this area in the past 20 years. Both experimental and theoretical aspects have been covered. New directions and possible theoretical models were suggested. The contributors of this book are from China Center of Advanced Science and Technology (CCAST); Institute of Physics Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); National Lab for Superconductivity, Institute of Physics, CAS; School of Physics, Peking University and Center of Advanced Study Tsinghua University.This volume will be a useful guide to those who are working in the field.

The book includes a thorough description of a wide range of physical properties of organic superconductors of reduced dimensionality. The authors start with an overview of the field followed by a background discussion and selected experimental topics. A critical discussion of theoretical proposals is presented under the constraints of experimental observations and exciting possibilities for the symmetry of the order parameter are presented, including the cases of inhomogeneous superconducting states and triplet superconductivity. The possible origins of Cooper pairing are explored and tests to detect experimentally the pairing symmetry are described in detail. The book ends with a discussion of important open questions, where the search for their answers will keep the field alive for the next decade.

This book covers the important contributions of the Chinese during the development of high-temperature superconductors (HTS). The study of Y-based HTS, which was the first to be reported internationally at a liquid nitrogen temperature above 90 K, has retained the world record for superconducting transition temperatures. The book covers the study of superconducting energy gap, microscopic electron non-uniformity, ARPES research, "kinks" research, eHigh-Tᶜ. In order to provide a comprehensive introduction to the physical properties of condensed matter, this book also includes studies on the thermodynamic properties of high-temperature superconductors, low-temperature heat transport, and Raman spectroscopy. In addition, this book includes important topics in theoretical studies, including the study of the magnetic and superconductivity of iron-based materials, the non-diagonal long procedure in condensed quantum phases, and the creation of oxygen sites in the CuO₂ plane. Rotational fluctuations lead to the study of superconducting states. This book is suitable for researchers and graduate students in condensed matter physics, materials science, optics and other fields.