to be done in this area. Face recognition is a problem that scarcely clamoured for attention before the computer age but, having surfaced, has involved a wide range of techniques and has attracted the attention of some fine minds (David Mumford was a Fields Medallist in 1974). This singular application of mathematical modelling to a messy applied problem of obvious utility and importance but with no unique solution is a pretty one to share with students: perhaps, returning to the source of our opening quotation, we may invert Duncan's earlier observation, 'There is an art to find the mind's construction in the face!'.

Linear and nonlinear waves, by G. B. Whitham. Pp.636. £50. 1999. ISBN 0 471 35942 4 (Wiley).

We explore in this chapter questions of existence and uniqueness for solutions to stochastic differential equations and offer a study of their properties. This endeavor is really a study of diffusion processes. Loosely speaking, the term diffusion is attributed to a Markov process which has continuous sample paths and can be characterized in terms of its infinitesimal generator.

Stochastic Differential Equations

A comprehensive review of zonal flow phenomena in plasmas is presented. While the emphasis is on zonal flows in laboratory plasmas, planetary zonal flows are discussed as well. The review presents the status of theory, numerical simulation and experiments relevant to zonal flows. The emphasis is on developing an integrated understanding of the dynamics of drift wave–zonal flow turbulence by combining detailed studies of the generation of zonal flows by drift waves, the back-interaction of zonal flows on the drift waves, and the various feedback loops by which the system regulates and organizes itself. The implications of zonal flow phenomena for confinement in, and the phenomena of fusion devices are discussed. Special attention is given to the comparison of experiment with theory and to identifying directions for progress in future research.

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Zonal flows in plasma—a review

The field of laser-matter interaction traditionally deals with the response of atoms, molecules, and plasmas to an external light wave. However, the recent sustained technological progress is opening up the possibility of employing intense laser radiation to trigger or substantially influence physical processes beyond atomic-physics energy scales. Available optical laser intensities exceeding ${10}^{22}\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{W}/{\mathrm{cm}}^{2}$ can push the fundamental light-electron interaction to the extreme limit where radiation-reaction effects dominate the electron dynamics, can shed light on the structure of the quantum vacuum, and can trigger the creation of particles such as electrons, muons, and pions and their corresponding antiparticles. Also, novel sources of intense coherent high-energy photons and laser-based particle colliders can pave the way to nuclear quantum optics and may even allow for the potential discovery of new particles beyond the standard model. These are the main topics of this article, which is devoted to a review of recent investigations on high-energy processes within the realm of relativistic quantum dynamics, quantum electrodynamics, and nuclear and particle physics, occurring in extremely intense laser fields.

Extremely high-intensity laser interactions with fundamental quantum systems

The theory of two-dimensional turbulence is reviewed and unified, and some hydrodynamic and plasma applications are considered. The topics covered include some equations of incompressible hydrodynamics, absolute statistical equilibrium, spectral transport of energy and enstrophy, turbulence on the surface of a rotating sphere, turbulent diffusion, MHD turbulence, and two-dimensional superflow. Finally, an attempt is made to assess the status and future of the principal research topics which have been discussed.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0034-4885/43/5/001/pdf

Two-dimensional turbulence

Envelope soliton solutions of a class of generalized nonlinear Schrodinger equations are investigated. If the quasiparticle number N is conserved, the evolution of solitons in the presence of perturbations can be discussed in terms of the functional behavior of N(η2), where η2 is the nonlinear frequency shift. For ∂η2N >0, the system is stable in the sense of Liapunov, whereas, in the opposite region, instability occurs. The theorem is applied to various types of envelope solitons such as spikons, relatons, and others.

Evolution theorem for a class of perturbed envelope soliton solutions

Nonlinear convective motion in plasmas

Nonlinear ion-acoustic waves in magnetized plasmas are investigated. In strong magnetic fields they can be described by a Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) type equation. It is shown here that these plane soliton solutions become unstable with respect to bending distortions. Variational principles are derived for the maximum growth rate γ as a function of the transverse wavenumber k of the perturbations. Since the variational principles are formulated in complementary form, the numerical evaluation yields upper and lower bounds for γ. Choosing appropriate test functions and increasing the accuracy of the computations we find very close upper and lower bounds for the γ(k) curve. The results show that the growth rate peaks at a certain value of k and a cut-off kc exists. In the region where the γ(k) curve was not predicted numerically with high accuracy, i.e. near the cut-off, we find very precise analytical estimates. These findings are compared with previous results. For k≥kc, stability with respect to transverse perturbations is proved.

Growth rates of bending KdV solitons

The magnetic-field perturbation produced by the dynamic ergodic divertor in TEXTOR changes the topology of the magnetic field in the plasma edge, creating an open chaotic system. The perturbation spectrum contains only a few dominant harmonics and therefore it can be described by an analytical model. The modeling is performed in the vacuum approximation without assuming a backreaction of the plasma and does not rely on any experimentally obtained parameters. It is shown that this vacuum approximation predicts in many details the experimentally observed plasma structure. Several experiments have been performed to prove that the plasma edge behavior is defined mostly by the magnetic topology of the perturbed volume. The change in the transport can be explained with the knowledge of only the magnetic structures; i.e., the ergodic pattern dominates the plasma properties.

Change of the magnetic-field topology by an ergodic divertor and the effect on the plasma structure and transport.

An analytical stability criterion for discrete solitons is presented Its evaluation proves that discreteness reduces (in comparison with the continuum results) the critical nonlinearity parameter (which separates stable and unstable regimes) Unstable discrete solitons may "collapse" into the more stable intrinsically localized states The theory applies to a discrete nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation, but can be generalized to other systems

Karl H. Spatschek

Papers

Evolution theorem for a class of perturbed envelope soliton solutions

Nonlinear convective motion in plasmas

Growth rates of bending KdV solitons

Change of the magnetic-field topology by an ergodic divertor and the effect on the plasma structure and transport.

Stability of discrete solitons and quasicollapse to intrinsically localized modes.