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

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.

/pdf/pattern-formation-outside-of-equilibrium-1601b9znum.pdf

Pattern formation outside of equilibrium

N G van Kampen 1981 Amsterdam: North-Holland xiv + 419 pp price Dfl 180 This is a book which, at a lower price, could be expected to become an essential part of the library of every physical scientist concerned with problems involving fluctuations and stochastic processes, as well as those who just enjoy a beautifully written book. It provides an extensive graduate-level introduction which is clear, cautious, interesting and readable.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0031-9112/34/4/040/pdf

Stochastic Processes in Physics and Chemistry

QUANTUM gravitational effects are usually ignored in calculations of the formation and evolution of black holes. The justification for this is that the radius of curvature of space-time outside the event horizon is very large compared to the Planck length (Għ/c3)1/2 ≈ 10−33 cm, the length scale on which quantum fluctuations of the metric are expected to be of order unity. This means that the energy density of particles created by the gravitational field is small compared to the space-time curvature. Even though quantum effects may be small locally, they may still, however, add up to produce a significant effect over the lifetime of the Universe ≈ 1017 s which is very long compared to the Planck time ≈ 10−43 s. The purpose of this letter is to show that this indeed may be the case: it seems that any black hole will create and emit particles such as neutrinos or photons at just the rate that one would expect if the black hole was a body with a temperature of (κ/2π) (ħ/2k) ≈ 10−6 (M/M)K where κ is the surface gravity of the black hole1. As a black hole emits this thermal radiation one would expect it to lose mass. This in turn would increase the surface gravity and so increase the rate of emission. The black hole would therefore have a finite life of the order of 1071 (M/M)−3 s. For a black hole of solar mass this is much longer than the age of the Universe. There might, however, be much smaller black holes which were formed by fluctuations in the early Universe2. Any such black hole of mass less than 1015 g would have evaporated by now. Near the end of its life the rate of emission would be very high and about 1030 erg would be released in the last 0.1 s. This is a fairly small explosion by astronomical standards but it is equivalent to about 1 million 1 Mton hydrogen bombs. It is often said that nothing can escape from a black hole. But in 1974, Stephen Hawking realized that, owing to quantum effects, black holes should emit particles with a thermal distribution of energies — as if the black hole had a temperature inversely proportional to its mass. In addition to putting black-hole thermodynamics on a firmer footing, this discovery led Hawking to postulate 'black hole explosions', as primordial black holes end their lives in an accelerating release of energy.

Black Hole Explosions

Random-matrix theories in quantum physics : common concepts

We propose a method to accelerate adiabatic dynamics of wave functions (WFs) in quantum mechanics to obtain a final adiabatic state except for the spatially uniform phase in any desired short time. In our previous work, acceleration of the dynamics of WFs was shown to obtain the final state in any short time by applying driving potential. We develop the previous theory of fast-forward to derive a driving potential for the fast-forward of adiabatic dynamics. A typical example is the fast-forward of adiabatic transport of a WF, which is the ideal transport in the sense that a stationary WF is transported to an aimed position in any desired short time without leaving any disturbance at the final time of the fast-forward. As other important examples, we show accelerated manipulations of WFs, such as their splitting and squeezing. The theory is also applicable to macroscopic quantum mechanics described by the nonlinear Schrodinger equation.

Fast-forward of adiabatic dynamics in quantum mechanics

We show a method to accelerate quantum adiabatic dynamics of wave functions under electromagnetic field (EMF) by developing the preceding theory [Masuda and Nakamura, Proc. R. Soc. London Ser. A 466, 1135 (2010)]. Treating the orbital dynamics of a charged particle in EMF, we derive the driving field which accelerates quantum adiabatic dynamics in order to obtain the final adiabatic states in any desired short time. The scheme is consolidated by describing a way to overcome possible singularities in both the additional phase and driving potential due to nodes proper to wave functions under EMF. As explicit examples, we exhibit the fast forward of adiabatic squeezing and transport of excited Landau states with nonzero angular momentum, obtaining the result consistent with the transitionless quantum driving applied to the orbital dynamics in EMF.

Acceleration of adiabatic quantum dynamics in electromagnetic fields

We propose a way to accelerate adiabatic dynamics of wave functions in quantum mechanics to obtain a final adiabatic state except for the spatially uniform phase in any desired short time. We develop the previous theory of fast-forward (Masuda & Nakamura 2008) so as to derive a driving potential for the fast-forward of the adiabatic dynamics. A typical example is the fast-forward of adiabatic transport of a wave function which is the ideal transport in the sense that a stationary wave function is transported to an aimed position in any desired short time without leaving any disturbance at the final time of the fast-forward. As other important examples we show accelerated manipulations of wave functions such as their splitting and squeezing. The theory is also applicable to macroscopic quantum mechanics described by the nonlinear Schroedinger equation.

We study the case in which the nonlinear Schrodinger equation (NLSE) on simple networks consisting of vertices and bonds has an infinite number of constants of motion and becomes completely integrable just as in the case of a simple one-dimensional (1D) chain. Here the strength of cubic nonlinearity is different from bond to bond, and networks are assumed to have at least two semi-infinite bonds with one of them working as an incoming bond. The connection formula at vertices obtained from norm and energy conservation rules shows (1) the solution on each bond is a part of the universal (bond-independent) soliton solution of the completely integrable NLSE on the 1D chain, but is multiplied by the inverse of square root of bond-dependent nonlinearity; (2) nonlinearities at individual bonds around each vertex must satisfy a sum rule. Under these conditions, we also showed an infinite number of constants of motion. The argument on a branched chain or a primary star graph is generalized to other graphs, i.e., general star graphs, tree graphs, loop graphs and their combinations. As a relevant issue, with use of reflectionless propagation of Zakharov-Shabat's soliton through networks we have obtained the transmission probabilities on the outgoing bonds, which are inversely proportional to the bond-dependent strength of nonlinearity. Numerical evidence is also given to verify the prediction.

Integrable nonlinear Schrödinger equation on simple networks: Connection formula at vertices

In the Landau-Lifshitz equation which describes the evolution of spin fields in nonequilibrium continuum ferromagnets, by stereographic projection of the unit sphere of spin onto a complex plane, it is shown that the effect of the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert damping term is a mere rescaling of time by a complex constant. Consequently, for any given undamped motion of spatially regular and/or irregular spin structures, the nature of the damping can be analyzed exactly in a simplified manner.

Katsuhiro Nakamura

Papers

Fast-forward of adiabatic dynamics in quantum mechanics

Acceleration of adiabatic quantum dynamics in electromagnetic fields

Fast-forward of adiabatic dynamics in quantum mechanics

Integrable nonlinear Schrödinger equation on simple networks: Connection formula at vertices

Landau-Lifshitz Equation of Ferromagnetism: Exact Treatment of the Gilbert Damping