Non-Equilibrium Phase Transitions: Ageing and Dynamical Scaling Far from Equilibrium

by Henkel, Malte; Pleimling, Michel

• ISBN13: 9789048128686
• ISBN10: 9048128684
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-07-17
• Publisher: Springer Verlag

Summary

This is Volume 2 of a two-volume set, volume 1 having been published in 2008. The complete work surveys two main aspects of non-equilibrium phase-transitions: (a) transitions in the steady-state and (b) transitions in the relaxation behavior.Volume 1 (Absorbing Phase Transitions) covered the statics and dynamics of transitions into an absorbing state. Volume 2 (Dynamical Scaling far from Equlibrium) will treat relaxation phenomena far from equilibrium and ageing. Motivated initially from experimental results, dynamical scaling has now been recognised as a cornerstone in the modern understanding in far from equilibrium relaxation. Dynamical scaling is systematically introduced, starting from coarsening phenomena, and existing analytical results and numerical estimates of universal non-equilibrium exponents and scaling functions are reviewed in detail. Recent theoretical work aims to understand if dynamical scaling may be just a part of a larger symmetry, called local scaling. Initially, this was motivated by certain analogies with the conformal invariance of equilibrium phase transitions but only recently, this work reached a certain completion and this research is presented, systematically and in detail, in book form for the first time. Quite similar ideas apply to the phase transitions of equilibrium systems with competing interactions and interesting physical realizations, for example in Lifshitz points.