Recently, interacting particle systems have been studied widely from the standpoints of mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology. Many researchers are becoming interested in this field.This book focuses on the phase transitions of interacting particle systems, especially their critical values and order parameters. It poses the following question: How can we get good bounds on the critical values and the order parameters? This question is very basic, and many researchers have been trying to get better bounds rigorously. Hence the book provides bounds — both the author's and others'.

This book is representative of the work of Chinese probabilists on probability theory and its applications in physics. It presents a unique treatment of general Markov jump processes: uniqueness, various types of ergodicity, Markovian couplings, reversibility, spectral gap, etc. It also deals with a typical class of non-equilibrium particle systems, including the typical Schlögl model taken from statistical physics. The constructions, ergodicity and phase transitions for this class of Markov interacting particle systems, namely, reaction-diffusion processes, are presented. In this new edition, a large part of the text has been updated and two-and-a-half chapters have been rewritten. The book is self-contained and can be used in a course on stochastic processes for graduate students.

From the reviews: "...one of the best textbooks introducing several generations of mathematicians to higher mathematics. ... This excellent book is highly recommended both to instructors and students." --Acta Scientiarum Mathematicarum, 1991

This volume describes the current state of knowledge of random spatial processes, particularly those arising in physics. The emphasis is on survey articles which describe areas of current interest to probabilists and physicists working on the probability theory of phase transition. Special attention is given to topics deserving further research. The principal contributions by leading researchers concern the mathematical theory of random walk, interacting particle systems, percolation, Ising and Potts models, spin glasses, cellular automata, quantum spin systems, and metastability. The level of presentation and review is particularly suitable for postgraduate and postdoctoral workers in mathematics and physics, and for advanced specialists in the probability theory of spatial disorder and phase transition.

At what point in the development of a new field should a book be written about it? This question is seldom easy to answer. In the case of interacting particle systems, important progress continues to be made at a substantial pace. A number of problems which are nearly as old as the subject itself remain open, and new problem areas continue to arise and develop. Thus one might argue that the time is not yet ripe for a book on this subject. On the other hand, this field is now about fifteen years old. Many important of several basic models is problems have been solved and the analysis almost complete. The papers written on this subject number in the hundreds. It has become increasingly difficult for newcomers to master the proliferating literature, and for workers in allied areas to make effective use of it. Thus I have concluded that this is an appropriate time to pause and take stock of the progress made to date. It is my hope that this book will not only provide a useful account of much of this progress, but that it will also help stimulate the future vigorous development of this field.

This volume provides an overview of two of the most important examples of interacting particle systems, the contact process, and the voter model, as well as their many variants introduced in the past 50 years. These stochastic processes are organized by domains of application (epidemiology, population dynamics, ecology, genetics, sociology, econophysics, game theory) along with a flavor of the mathematical techniques developed for their analysis.

This book formulates a unified approach to the description of many-particle systems combining the methods of statistical physics and quantum field theory. The benefits of such an approach are in the description of phase transitions during the formation of new spatially inhomogeneous phases, as well in describing quasi-equilibrium systems with spatially inhomogeneous particle distributions (for example, self-gravitating systems) and metastable states.The validity of the methods used in the statistical description of many-particle systems and models (theory of phase transitions included) is discussed and compared. The idea of using the quantum field theory approach and related topics (path integration, saddle-point and stationary-phase methods, Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation, mean-field theory, and functional integrals) is described in detail to facilitate further understanding and explore more applications.To some extent, the book could be treated as a brief encyclopedia of methods applicable to the statistical description of spatially inhomogeneous equilibrium and metastable particle distributions. Additionally, the general approach is not only formulated, but also applied to solve various practically important problems (gravitating gas, Coulomb-like systems, dusty plasmas, thermodynamics of cellular structures, non-uniform dynamics of gravitating systems, etc.).