There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

다중혈관 관상동맥 환자에서 y-문합을 이용하여 양쪽 내흉동맥만을 사용한 우회술의 조기 성적

[신간의 별자리x] 우리/미술, 그리고 ‘슬픔의 박물관’

A comprehensive review of spatiotemporal pattern formation in systems driven away from equilibrium is presented, with emphasis on comparisons between theory and quantitative experiments. Examples include patterns in hydrodynamic systems such as thermal convection in pure fluids and binary mixtures, Taylor-Couette flow, parametric-wave instabilities, as well as patterns in solidification fronts, nonlinear optics, oscillatory chemical reactions and excitable biological media. The theoretical starting point is usually a set of deterministic equations of motion, typically in the form of nonlinear partial differential equations. These are sometimes supplemented by stochastic terms representing thermal or instrumental noise, but for macroscopic systems and carefully designed experiments the stochastic forces are often negligible. An aim of theory is to describe solutions of the deterministic equations that are likely to be reached starting from typical initial conditions and to persist at long times. A unified description is developed, based on the linear instabilities of a homogeneous state, which leads naturally to a classification of patterns in terms of the characteristic wave vector q0 and frequency ω0 of the instability. Type Is systems (ω0=0, q0≠0) are stationary in time and periodic in space; type IIIo systems (ω0≠0, q0=0) are periodic in time and uniform in space; and type Io systems (ω0≠0, q0≠0) are periodic in both space and time. Near a continuous (or supercritical) instability, the dynamics may be accurately described via "amplitude equations," whose form is universal for each type of instability. The specifics of each system enter only through the nonuniversal coefficients. Far from the instability threshold a different universal description known as the "phase equation" may be derived, but it is restricted to slow distortions of an ideal pattern. For many systems appropriate starting equations are either not known or too complicated to analyze conveniently. It is thus useful to introduce phenomenological order-parameter models, which lead to the correct amplitude equations near threshold, and which may be solved analytically or numerically in the nonlinear regime away from the instability. The above theoretical methods are useful in analyzing "real pattern effects" such as the influence of external boundaries, or the formation and dynamics of defects in ideal structures. An important element in nonequilibrium systems is the appearance of deterministic chaos. A greal deal is known about systems with a small number of degrees of freedom displaying "temporal chaos," where the structure of the phase space can be analyzed in detail. For spatially extended systems with many degrees of freedom, on the other hand, one is dealing with spatiotemporal chaos and appropriate methods of analysis need to be developed. In addition to the general features of nonequilibrium pattern formation discussed above, detailed reviews of theoretical and experimental work on many specific systems are presented. These include Rayleigh-Benard convection in a pure fluid, convection in binary-fluid mixtures, electrohydrodynamic convection in nematic liquid crystals, Taylor-Couette flow between rotating cylinders, parametric surface waves, patterns in certain open flow systems, oscillatory chemical reactions, static and dynamic patterns in biological media, crystallization fronts, and patterns in nonlinear optics. A concluding section summarizes what has and has not been accomplished, and attempts to assess the prospects for the future.

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Pattern formation outside of equilibrium

Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) has been observed in a dilute gas of sodium atoms. A Bose-Einstein condensate consists of a macroscopic population of the ground state of the system, and is a coherent state of matter. In an ideal gas, this phase transition is purely quantum-statistical. The study of BEC in weakly interacting systems which can be controlled and observed with precision holds the promise of revealing new macroscopic quantum phenomena that can be understood from first principles.

Bose-Einstein condensation in a gas of sodium atoms

A detailed survey of the technique of perturbation theory for nearly integrable systems, based upon the inverse scattering transform, and a minute account of results obtained by means of that technique and alternative methods are given. Attention is focused on four classical nonlinear equations: the Korteweg-de Vries, nonlinear Schr\"odinger, sine-Gordon, and Landau-Lifshitz equations perturbed by various Hamiltonian and/or dissipative terms; a comprehensive list of physical applications of these perturbed equations is compiled. Systems of weakly coupled equations, which become exactly integrable when decoupled, are also considered in detail. Adiabatic and radiative effects in dynamics of one and several solitons (both simple and compound) are analyzed. Generalizations of the perturbation theory to quasi-one-dimensional and quantum (semiclassical) solitons, as well as to nonsoliton nonlinear wave packets, are also considered.

Dynamics of Solitons in Nearly Integrable Systems

This article offers a comprehensive survey of results obtained for solitons and complex nonlinear wave patterns supported by nonlinear lattices (NLs), which represent a spatially periodic modulation of the local strength and sign of the nonlinearity, and their combinations with linear lattices. A majority of the results obtained, thus far, in this field and reviewed in this article are theoretical. Nevertheless, relevant experimental settings are also surveyed, with emphasis on perspectives for implementation of the theoretical predictions in the experiment. Physical systems discussed in the review belong to the realms of nonlinear optics (including artificial optical media, such as photonic crystals, and plasmonics) and Bose-Einstein condensation. The solitons are considered in one, two, and three dimensions. Basic properties of the solitons presented in the review are their existence, stability, and mobility. Although the field is still far from completion, general conclusions can be drawn. In particular, a novel fundamental property of one-dimensional solitons, which does not occur in the absence of NLs, is a finite threshold value of the soliton norm, necessary for their existence. In multidimensional settings, the stability of solitons supported by the spatial modulation of the nonlinearity is a truly challenging problem, for theoretical and experimental studies alike. In both the one-dimensional and two-dimensional cases, the mechanism that creates solitons in NLs in principle is different from its counterpart in linear lattices, as the solitons are created directly, rather than bifurcating from Bloch modes of linear lattices.

Solitons in nonlinear lattices

In the course of the past several years, a new level of understanding has been achieved about conditions for the existence, stability, and generation of spatiotemporal optical solitons, which are nondiffracting and nondispersing wavepackets propagating in nonlinear optical media. Experimentally, effectively two-dimensional (2D) spatiotemporal solitons that overcome diffraction in one transverse spatial dimension have been created in quadratic nonlinear media. With regard to the theory, fundamentally new features of light pulses that self-trap in one or two transverse spatial dimensions and do not spread out in time, when propagating in various optical media, were thoroughly investigated in models with various nonlinearities. Stable vorticity-carrying spatiotemporal solitons have been predicted too, in media with competing nonlinearities (quadratic–cubic or cubic–quintic). This article offers an up-to-date survey of experimental and theoretical results in this field. Both achievements and outstanding difficulties are reviewed, and open problems are highlighted. Also briefly described are recent predictions for stable 2D and 3D solitons in Bose–Einstein condensates supported by full or low-dimensional optical lattices.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1464-4266/7/5/R02/pdf

Spatiotemporal optical solitons

On considere l'instabilite gravitationnelle d'un etat spatialement uniforme d'un champ scalaire relativiste sur un fond independant du temps. On demontre que l'instabilite est semblable a l'instabilite de Jeans pour la matiere non relativiste du type poussiere. Les effets «hydrodynamiques» peuvent modifier considerablement le caractere de l'instabilite. Application au calcul de la probabilite de formation de trous noirs originels

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Gravitational instability of scalar fields and formation of primordial black holes

Periodically modulated dispersion, and dispersion management: basic results for solitons.- The split-step model.- Nonlinearity management for quadratic, cubic, and Bragg-grating solitons.- Resonant management of one-dimensional solitons in Bose-Einstein condensates.- Management for channel solitons: a waveguiding-antiwaveguiding system.- Stabilization of spatial solitons in bulk Kerr media with alternating nonlinearity.- Stabilization of two-dimensional solitons in Bose-Einstein condensates under Feshbach-resonance management.- Multidimensional dispersion management.- Feshbach-resonance management in optical lattices.

Boris A. Malomed

Papers

Dynamics of Solitons in Nearly Integrable Systems

Solitons in nonlinear lattices

Spatiotemporal optical solitons

Gravitational instability of scalar fields and formation of primordial black holes

Soliton Management in Periodic Systems