A summary of recent developments in theoretical and experimental studies of fluctuation effects in itinerant electron magnets, focusing on novel physical phenomena: soft-mode spin fluctuations and zero-point effects, strong spin anharmonicity, magnetic frustrations in metals, fluctuation effects in Invar alloys and low-dimensional systems. All of these may be important for novel high-technology applications.

This volume shows how collective magnetic excitations determine most of the magnetic properties of itinerant electron magnets. Previous theories were mainly restricted to the Curie-Weiss law temperature dependence of magnetic susceptibilities. Based on the spin amplitude conservation idea including the zero-point fluctuation amplitude, this book shows that the entire temperature and magnetic field dependence of magnetization curves, even in the ground state, is determined by the effect of spin fluctuations. It also shows that the theoretical consequences are largely in agreement with many experimental observations. The readers will therefore gain a new comprehensive perspective of their unified understanding of itinerant electron magnetism.

Ferromagnetism of metallic systems, especially those including transition metals, has been a controversial subject of modern science for a long time. This controversy sterns from the apparent dual character of the d-electrons responsible for magnetism in transition metals, i.e., they are itinerant elec trons described by band theory in their ground state, while at finite tem peratures they show various properties that have long been attributed to a system consisting of local magnetic moments. The most familiar example of these properties is the Curie-Weiss law of magnetic susceptibility obeyed by almost all ferromagnets above their Curie temperatures. At first the problem seemed to be centered around whether the d-elec trons themselves are localized or itinerant. This question was settled in the 1950s and early 1960s by various experimental investigations, in particular by observations of d-electron Fermi surfaces in ferromagnetic transition metals. These observations are generally consistent with the results of band calculations. Theoretical investigations since then have concentrated on explaining this dual character of d-electron systems, taking account of the effects of electron-electron correlations in the itinerant electron model. The problem in physical terms is to study the spin density fluctuati·ons, which are ne glected in the mean-field or one-electron theory, and their influence on the physical properties.

Current biological research demands the extensive use of sophisticated mathematical methods and computer-aided analysis of experiments and data. This highly interdisciplinary volume focuses on structural, dynamical and functional aspects of cellular systems and presents corresponding experiments and mathematical models. The book may serve as an introduction for biologists, mathematicians and physicists to key questions in cellular systems which can be studied with mathematical models. Recent model approaches are presented with applications in cellular metabolism, intra- and intercellular signaling, cellular mechanics, network dynamics and pattern formation. In addition, applied issues such as tumor cell growth, dynamics of the immune system and biotechnology are included.

This book, in the broadest sense, is an application of quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics to the field of magnetism. Under certain well described conditions, an immensely large number of electrons moving in the solid will collectively produce permanent magnetism. Permanent magnets are of fundamental interest, and magnetic materials are of great practical importance as they provide a large field of technological applications. The physical details describing the many electron problem of magnetism are presented in this book on the basis of the density functional approximation. The emphasis is on realistic magnets, for which the equations describing properties of the many electron problem can only be solved by using computers. The significant recent and continuing improvements are, to a very large extent, responsible for the progress in this field. Along with an introduction to the density functional theory, the book describes representative computational methods and detailed formulas for physical properties of magnets which include among other things the computation of magnetic ordering temperatures, the giant magneto-resistance, magneto-optical effects, weak ferromagnetism, the anomalous Hall and Nernst effects, and novel quasiparticles, such as Weyl fermions and magnetic skyrmions.

Magnetic and superconducting materials pervade every avenue of the technological world – from microelectronics and mass-data storage to medicine and heavy engineering. Both areas have experienced a recent revitalisation of interest due to the discovery of new materials, and the re-evaluation of a wide range of basic mechanisms and phenomena.This Concise Encyclopedia draws its material from the award-winning Encyclopedia of Materials and Engineering, and includes updates and revisions not available in the original set -- making it the ideal reference companion for materials scientists and engineers with an interest in magnetic and superconducting materials. - Contains in excess of 130 articles, taken from the award-winning Encyclopedia of Materials: Science and Technology, including ScienceDirect updates not available in the original set - Each article discusses one aspect of magnetic and superconducting materials and includes photographs, line drawings and tables to aid the understanding of the topic at hand - Cross-referencing guides readers to articles covering subjects of related interest

This book, in the broadest sense, is an application of quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics to the field of magnetism. Under certain well described circumstances, an immensely large number of electrons moving in the solid state of matter will collectively produce permanent magnetism. Permanent magnets are of fundamental interest, and magnetic materials are also of great practical importance as they provide a large field of technological applications. The physical details describing the many electron problem of magnetism are presented in this book on the basis of the local density functional approximation. The emphasis is on realistic magnets, for which the equations describing the many electron problem can only be solved by using computers. The great, recent and continuing improvements of computers are, to a large extent, responsible for the progress in the field. Along with a detailed introduction to the density functional theory, this book presents representative computational methods and provides the reader with a complete computer programme for the determination of the electronic structure of a magnet on a PC. A large part of the book is devoted to a detailed treatment of the connections between electronic properties and magnetism, and how they differ in the various known magnetic systems. Current trends are exposed and explained for a large class of alloys and compounds. The modern field of artificially layered systems - known as multilayers - and their industrial applications are dealt with in detail. Finally, an attempt is made to relate the rich thermodynamic properties of magnets to the ab initio results originating from the electronic structure.