Phase Transitions and Relaxation in Systems with Competing Energy Scales

Systems with competing energy scales are widespread and exhibit rich and subtle behaviour, although their systematic study is a relatively recent activity. This text presents lectures given at a NATO Advanced Study Institute reviewing the current knowledge and understanding of this fascinating subject, particularly with regard to phase transitions and dynamics, at an advanced tutorial level. Both general and specific aspects are considered, with competitions having several origins; differences in intrinsic interactions, interplay between intrinsic and extrinsic effects, such as geometry and disorder; irreversibility and non-equilibration. Among the specific physical application areas are supercooled liquids and glasses, high-temperature superconductors, flux or vortex pinning and motion, charge density waves, domain growth and coarsening, and electron solidification.

Year

1993

Language

English

Series

NATO ASI Series, Series C: Mathematical and Physical Sciences -- 415

Publisher

Springer Netherlands

Editions

1

Pages

452

ISBN

9789401048439

Data source: Wikidata