Developments in Mathematical and Experimental Physics

The FIRST MEXICAN MEETING ON MATHEMATICAL AND EXPERI MENTAL PHYSICS was held at EL COLEGIO NACIONAL in Mexico City, Mexico, from September 10 to 14, 2001. This event consisted of the LEOPOLDO GARciA-COLIN SCHERER Medal Lecture, delivered by Prof. Nicholas G. van Kampen, a series of plenary talks by Leopoldo Garcia CoHn, GUnter Nimtz, Luis F. Rodriguez, Ruoon Barrera, and Donald Saari, and of three parallel symposia, namely, Cosmology and Gravita tion, Statistical Physics and Beyond, and Hydrodynamics and Dynam ical Systems. The response from the Physics community was enthusi astic, with over 200 participants and around 80 speakers, from all over the world: USA, Canada, Mexico, Germany, France, Holland, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Spain, and Hungary. The main aim of the conference is to provide a scenario to Mexican researchers on the topics of Mathematical and Experimental Physics in order to keep them in contact with work going on in other parts of the world and at the same time to motivate and support the young and mid career researchers from our country. To achieve this goal, we decided to invite as lecturers the most distinguished experts in the subjects of the conference and to give the opportunity to young scientist to communi cate the results of their work. The plan is to celebrate this international endeavor every three years.

Klappentext

PThe first part is devoted to colloidal particles and stochastic dynamics, mainly concerned with recent authoritative results in the study of interactions between colloidal particles and transport properties in colloids and ferrocolloids. Recent advances in non-equilibrium statistical physics, such as stochastic resonance, Brownian motors, ratchets and noise-induced transport are also reported./P PThe second part deals with biological systems and polymers. Here, standard simulation methodology to treat diffusional dynamics of multi-protein systems and proton transport in macromolecules is presented. Results of nervous system, spectroscopy of biological membrane models, and Monte Carlo simulations of polymers chains are also discussed./P PThe third part is concerned with granular materials and quantum systems, in particular an effective-medium theory for a random system is reported. Additionally, a comprehensive treatment of spin and charge order in the vortex lattice of the cuprates, both theoretical and experimental, is included. Thermodynamics analogies between Bose-Einstein condensation and black-body radiation are also presented./P PThe last part of the book contains recent developments of certain topics of liquid crystals and molecular fluids, including nonequilibrium thermal light scattering from nematic liquid crystals, relaxation in the kinetic Ising model on the periodic in homogeneous chain, models for thermotropic liquid-crystals, thermodynamic properties of fluids with discrete potentials as well as of fluids determined from the speed of sound effective potentials, and second viral coefficient for polar fluids./P

Inhalt
Interaction between colloidal particles.- Selfdiffusion of colloidal particles in twodimensional porous media.- Short-time transport properties in colloids.- Rotational diffusion in a ferrocolloid.- Dynamics of colloidal particles.- Rotating unstable Langevin-type dynamics and nonlinear effects.- Mesoscopic thermodynamics for Brownian particles.- Chaos and transport in deterministic inertial ratchets.- Computer simulation meets molecular biology.- From neuron to brain: Statistical physics of the nervous system.- Elastic vibrational of nanoparticles.- Vibrational Spectroscopy of Biological Membrane Models.- Polymer chain collapse in supercritical fluids.- Amperian magnetism in the dynamic response of granular materials.- Spin and charge order in the vortex lattice of the cuprates: experiment and theory.- Thermodynamic analogies between Bose-Einstein condensation and black-body radiation.- Nonequilibrium thermal light scattering from nematic liquid crystals.- Relaxation in the kinetic Ising model on the periodic inhomogeneous chain.- Primitive models for thermotropic liquid-crystals.- Modelling thermodynamic properties of fluids with discrete potentials.- Thermodynamic properties of fluids determined from the speed of sound.- Effective Potentials and Second Virial Coefficient for Polar Fluids.- Leopoldo Garcia-Colin Scherer: Brief biography.- Nicholas G. van Kampen: Brief biography.