In my original proposal to Springer for a book on Quantal Density Functional Theory, I had envisaged one that was as complete in its presentation as possible, describing the basic theory as well as the approximation methods and a host of applications. However,after workingon the bookforabout ?ve years, I realizedthat the goal was too ambitious, and that I would be writing for another ?ve years for it to be achieved. Fortunately,there was a natural breakin the material, and I proposed to my editor, Dr. Claus Ascheron, that we split the book into two components: the ?rst on the basic theoretical framework, and the second on approximation methods and applications. Dr. Ascheron consented, and I am thankful to him for agreeing to do so. Hence, we published Quantal Density Functional Theory in 2004, and are now publishing Quantal Density Functional Theory II: Approximation Methods and Applications. One signi?cant advantage of this, as it turns out, is that I have been able to incorporate in each volume the most recent understandings available. This volume, like the earlier one, is aimed at advanced undergraduates in physics and chemistry, graduate students and researchers in the ?eld. It is written in the same pedagogical style with details of all proofs and numerous ?gures provided to explain the physics.

In the last 40 years geophysicists have found that it is possible to construct images and even determine important physical characteristics of rocks that can yield information about oil and gas bearing structures in the earth. To make these images and extract this information requires the application of an advanced understanding of the mathematical physics of wave propagation. The oil and gas industry labels a major collection of the necessary seismic data processing methods by the name seismic "migration".

Low-dimensional semiconductors have become a vital part of today's semiconductor physics, and excitons in these systems are ideal objects that bring textbook quantum mechanics to life. Furthermore, their theoretical understanding is important for experiments and optoelectronic devices. The author develops the effective-mass theory of excitons in low-dimensional semiconductors and describes numerical methods for calculating the optical absorption including Coulomb interaction, geometry, and external fields. The theory is applied to Fano resonances in low-dimensional semiconductors and the Zener breakdown in superlattices. Comparing theoretical results with experiments, the book is essentially self-contained; it is a hands-on approach with detailed derivations, worked examples, illustrative figures, and computer programs. The book is clearly structured and will be valuable as an advanced-level self-study or course book for graduate students, lecturers, and researchers.

This book provides a succinct overview of recent progress in characterization of heat carriers describing atomic motion in liquids. Unlike solids and gases where heat carriers are typically described by phonons and real atomic particles, the nature of effective heat carriers in liquids is still elusive.

Der beliebte Grundkurs Theoretische Physik deckt in sieben Bänden alle für Bachelor/Master- oder Diplom-Studiengänge maßgeblichen Gebiete ab. Jeder Band vermittelt gut durchdacht das im jeweiligen Semester nötige theoretische-physikalische Rüstzeug. Zahlreiche Übungsaufgaben mit ausführlichen Lösungen dienen der Vertiefung des Stoffes.

Simulation of materials at the atomistic level is an important tool in studying microscopic structures and processes. The atomic interactions necessary for the simulations are correctly described by Quantum Mechanics, but the size of systems and the length of processes that can be modelled are still limited. The framework of Gaussian Approximation Potentials that is developed in this thesis allows us to generate interatomic potentials automatically, based on quantum mechanical data. The resulting potentials offer several orders of magnitude faster computations, while maintaining quantum mechanical accuracy. The method has already been successfully applied for semiconductors and metals.

This book aims to coherently present applications of group analysis to integro-differential equations in an accessible way. The book will be useful to both physicists and mathematicians interested in general methods to investigate nonlinear problems using symmetries.

In addition to traditional topics, this book includes: selective measurements, Wigner's Theorem of symmetry transformations, generators of quantum transformations, supersymmetry, details on the spectra of Hamiltonians and stability of quantum systems, Bose-Fermi oscillators, coherent states, hyperfine structure of the H-atom for any angular momentum, the non-relativistic Lamb shift, anomalous magnetic moment of the electron, Ramsey oscillatory fields methods, measurement, interference and the role of the environment, the AB effect, geometric phases, including non-adiabatic and non-cyclic, Schrödinger's cat and quantum decoherence, quantum teleportation and cryptography, quantum dynamics of the Stern-Gerlach effect, Green functions, path integrals, including constrained dynamics, quantum dynamical principle and variations, systematics of multi-electron atoms, stability of matter, collapse of "bosonic matter" and the role of spin, intricacies of scattering, quantum description of relativistic particles for any spin and mass, spinors, helicity, the Spin and Statistics Theorem. It also contains numerous problems some of which are challenging enough for research.

HISTORICAL PRELUDE Ettore Majorana's fame solidly rests on testimonies like the following, from the evocative pen of Giuseppe Cocconi. At the request of Edoardo Amaldi, he wrote from CERN (July 18, 1965): "In January 1938, after having just graduated, I was invited, essen­ tially by you, to come to the Institute of Physics at the University in Rome for six months as a teaching assistant, and once I was there I would have the good fortune of joining Fermi, Bernardini (who had been given a chair at Camerino a few months earlier) and Ageno (he, too, a new graduate), in the research of the products of disintegration of /-L "mesons" (at that time called mesotrons or yukons), which are produced by cosmic rays [ . . . ] "It was actually while I was staying with Fermi in the small laboratory on the second floor, absorbed in our work, with Fermi working with a piece of Wilson's chamber (which would help to reveal mesons at the end of their range) on a lathe and me constructing a jalopy for the illumination of the chamber, using the flash produced by the explosion of an aluminum ribbon short circuited on a battery, that Ettore Majorana came in search of Fermi. I was introduced to him and we exchanged few words. A dark face. And that was it.

The aim of this book is twofold: to provide an introduction for newcomers to state of the art computer simulation techniques in space plasma physics and an overview of current developments. Computer simulation has reached a stage where it can be a highly useful tool for guiding theory and for making predictions of space plasma phenomena, ranging from microscopic to global scales. The various articles are arranged, as much as possible, according to the - derlying simulation technique, starting with the technique that makes the least number of assumptions: a fully kinetic approach which solves the coupled set of Maxwell’s equations for the electromagnetic ?eld and the equations of motion for a very large number of charged particles (electrons and ions) in this ?eld. Clearly, this is also the computationally most demanding model. Therefore, even with present day high performance computers, it is the most restrictive in terms of the space and time domain and the range of particle parameters that can be covered by the simulation experiments. It still makes sense, therefore, to also use models, which due to their simp- fying assumptions, seem less realistic, although the e?ect of these assumptions on the outcome of the simulation experiments needs to be carefully assessed.

This edition combines the earlier two volumes on Quantum Mechanics of Atoms and Molecules and on Quantum Mechanics of Large Systems, thus including in a single volume the material for a two-semester course on quantum physics. Since this volume is already quite heavy, I could not include many new results which show how lively the subject is. I just want to mention that inequality (IV:4. 1. l. 1) has been sharpened by T. Weidl by a factor 2][ and the difficult problem 1 of (III:4. 6) has been solved by A. Martin. I have to thank N. Ilieva for the devotion in preparing this new edition. Vienna, November 2001 Walter Thirring Preface to the Second Edition: Quantum Mechanics of Atoms and Molecules Ever since the first edition of this volume appeared in 1980 quantum statistical mechanics has florished. Innumerable results in many areas have been obtained and it would require a series of volumes to do justice to all of them. On the other hand the first edition was already rather crowded with many details so it would not be overburdened any more. Thus I added only one chapter on quantum ergodic theory where one can get the main notions across without too much pain. Nevertheless many subjects treated in the book had splendidely developed ever since and the only way out I could see is to add some recent references which the interested reader can consult.

Recent years have seen a growing interest in the effects of relativity in atoms, molecules and solids. On the one hand, this can be seen as result of the growing awareness of the importance of relativity in describing the properties of heavy atoms and systems containing them. This has been fueled by the inadequacy of physical models which either neglect relativity or which treat it as a small perturbation. On the other hand, it is dependent upon the technological developments which have resulted in computers powerful enough to make calculations on heavy atoms and on systems containing heavy atoms meaningful. Vector processing and, more recently, parallel processing techniques are playing an increasingly vital role in rendering the algorithms which arise in relativistic studies tractable. This has been exemplified in atomic structure theory, where the dominant role of the central nuclear charge simplifies the problem enough to permit some prediction to be made with high precision, especially for the highly ionized atoms of importance in plasma physics and in laser confinement studies. Today's sophisticated physical models of the atom derived from quantum electrodynamics would be intractable without recourse to modern computational machinery. Relativistic atomic structure calculations have a history dating from the early attempts of Swirles in the mid 1930's but continue to provide one of the primary test beds of modern theoretical physics.

A variety of nonlinear effects occur in a plasma. First, there are the wave­ steepening effects which can occur in any fluid in which the propagation speed depends upon the wave-amplitude. In a dispersive medium this can lead to classes of nonlinear waves which may have stationary solutions like solitons and shocks. Because the plasma also acts like an inherently nonlinear dielectric resonant interactions among waves lead to exchange of energy among them. Further, an electromagnetic wave interacting with a plasma may parametrically excite other waves in the plasma. A large-amplitude Langmuir wave undergoes a modulational instability which arises through local depressions in plasma density and the corresponding increases in the energy density of the wave electric field. Whereas a field collapse occurs in two and three dimensions, in a one-dimensional case, spatially localized stationary field structures called Langmuir solitons can result. Many other plasma waves like upper-hybrid waves, lower-hybrid waves etc.

This book is devoted to mathematical modeling of tokamak plasma. Since the appearance in 1982 of the first edition (in Russian), a considerable amount of experimental and theoretical material on tokamak research has been accumu­ lated. The new-generation devices, viz. , TFTR, JET and JT-60 were put into operation. The first experiments on these units have confirmed the correctness of the basic physical concepts underlying their construction. Experiments on plasma heating with the help of neutral beams and high-frequency (HF) waves on previous generation devices made it possible to obtain high-P plasmas. The number of "medium-size" tokamaks in operation has increased. New experi­ mental results and advances in the theory have led to more complicated and perfected models of high-temperature plasma. Rapid progress in computer hardware and software has played an important role in the further development of mathematical modeling. While preparing the English edition of the book, we have revised the text considerably. Several new models which have undergone significant advance­ ment in recent years are described. A section devoted to models of RF (radio frequency) current drive has been added to Chap. 2. The reduced magneto­ hydrodynamic (MHD) equations for high-P plasma are now considered in detail in Chap. 3. Chapter 4 contains the latest results on anomalous thermal conductivity, diffusion coefficient and pinching. Two new sections are added to Chap. 5.

For more than ten years we have been working with the ideal linear MHD equations used to study the stability of thermonuc1ear plasmas. Even though the equations are simple and the problem is mathematically well formulated, the numerical problems were much harder to solve than anticipated. Already in the one-dimensional cylindrical case, what we called "spectral pollution" appeared. We were able to eliminate it by our "ecological solution".