The first book of its kind to introduce the fundamentals, basic features and models, potential applications and novel phenomena and its important applications in liquid crystal technology. Recognized leader in the field Gaetano Assanto outlines the peculiar characteristics of nematicons and the promise they have for the future growth of this captivating new field.

Systems driven far from thermodynamic equilibrium can create dissipative structures through the spontaneous breaking of symmetries. A particularly fascinating feature of these pattern-forming systems is their tendency to produce spatially confined states. These localized wave packets can exist as propagating entities through space and/or time. Various examples of such systems will be dealt with in this book, including localized states in fluids, chemical reactions on surfaces, neural networks, optical systems, granular systems, population models, and Bose-Einstein condensates. This book should appeal to all physicists, mathematicians and electrical engineers interested in localization in far-from-equilibrium systems. The authors - all recognized experts in their fields - strive to achieve a balance between theoretical and experimental considerations thereby giving an overview of fascinating physical principles, their manifestations in diverse systems, and the novel technical applications on the horizon.

This volume collects a a number of contributions on spontaneous symmetry breaking. Current studies in this general field are going ahead at a full speed. The book present review chapters which give an overview on the major break throughs of recent years. It covers a number of different physical settings which are introduced when a nonlinearity is added to the underlying symmetric problems and its strength exceeds a certain critical value. The corresponding loss of symmetry, called spontaneous symmetry breaking, alias self-trapping into asymmetric states is extensively discussed in this book. The book presents both active theoretical studies of spontaneous symmetry breaking effects as well as experimental findings, chiefly for Bose-Einstein-Condensates with the self-repulsive nonlinearity, and also for photorefractive media in optics.

Issues in General Physics Research / 2011 Edition is a ScholarlyEditions™ eBook that delivers timely, authoritative, and comprehensive information about General Physics Research. The editors have built Issues in General Physics Research: 2011 Edition on the vast information databases of ScholarlyNews.™ You can expect the information about General Physics Research in this eBook to be deeper than what you can access anywhere else, as well as consistently reliable, authoritative, informed, and relevant. The content of Issues in General Physics Research: 2011 Edition has been produced by the world’s leading scientists, engineers, analysts, research institutions, and companies. All of the content is from peer-reviewed sources, and all of it is written, assembled, and edited by the editors at ScholarlyEditions™ and available exclusively from us. You now have a source you can cite with authority, confidence, and credibility. More information is available at http://www.ScholarlyEditions.com/.

This book presents an overview of the state of the art of the developing topic of nonlinear optics with contributions from leading experts in the field in China, ranging from weak light nonlinear optics, ultrafast nonlinear optics to electro-optical theory and applications. In the past decade, nonlinear optics has evolved into many different branches, depending on the form of the material used for studying the nonlinear phenomena. The growth of research in nonlinear optics is closely linked to the rapid technological advances that have occurred in related fields, such as ultra-fast phenomena and optical communications. Nonlinear-optics activities range from the fundamental studies of the interaction between matter and radiation to the development of devices, components, and systems of tremendous commercial interest for widespread applications in optical telecommunications, medicine, and biotechnology. This book reviews the development of some nonlinear optics researches in China, not only the discovery of new principles, but also potential applications of nonlinear optics for various industries.

New applications, research, and fundamental theories in nonlinear analysis are presented in this book. Each chapter provides a unique insight into a large domain of research focusing on functional equations, stability theory, approximation theory, inequalities, nonlinear functional analysis, and calculus of variations with applications to optimization theory. Topics include: Fixed point theory Fixed-circle theory Coupled fixed points Nonlinear duality in Banach spaces Jensen's integral inequality and applications Nonlinear differential equations Nonlinear integro-differential equations Quasiconvexity, Stability of a Cauchy-Jensen additive mapping Generalizations of metric spaces Hilbert-type integral inequality, Solitons Quadratic functional equations in fuzzy Banach spaces Asymptotic orbits in Hill’sproblem Time-domain electromagnetics Inertial Mann algorithms Mathematical modelling Robotics Graduate students and researchers will find this book helpful in comprehending current applications and developments in mathematical analysis. Research scientists and engineers studying essential modern methods and techniques to solve a variety of problems will find this book a valuable source filled with examples that illustrate concepts.