A Kinetic View of Statistical Physics

Aimed at graduate students, this book explores some of the core phenomena in non-equilibrium statistical physics.

Pavel L. Krapivsky (Author), Sidney Redner (Author), Eli Ben-Naim (Author)

9780521851039, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 18 November 2010

504 pages, 125 b/w illus. 200 exercises
25.4 x 19.5 x 2.5 cm, 1.24 kg

'One can learn a lot from this book … [it] is a most useful collection of methods to treat nonlinear physical systems. It presents a large number of topical models investigated together with their analytic treatments.' Contemporary Physics

Aimed at graduate students, this book explores some of the core phenomena in non-equilibrium statistical physics. It focuses on the development and application of theoretical methods to help students develop their problem-solving skills. The book begins with microscopic transport processes: diffusion, collision-driven phenomena, and exclusion. It then presents the kinetics of aggregation, fragmentation and adsorption, where the basic phenomenology and solution techniques are emphasized. The following chapters cover kinetic spin systems, both from a discrete and a continuum perspective, the role of disorder in non-equilibrium processes, hysteresis from the non-equilibrium perspective, the kinetics of chemical reactions, and the properties of complex networks. The book contains 200 exercises to test students' understanding of the subject. A link to a website hosted by the authors, containing supplementary material including solutions to some of the exercises, can be found at www.cambridge.org/9780521851039.

1. Aperitifs
2. Diffusion
3. Collisions
4. Exclusion
5. Aggregation
6. Fragmentation
7. Adsorption
8. Spin dynamics
9. Coarsening
10. Disorder
11. Hysteresis
12. Population dynamics
13. Diffusive reactions
14. Complex networks
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Educational: Physics [YQSP], Physics [PH]