Nanomagnetism and spintronics is a rapidly expanding and increasingly important field of research with many applications already on the market and many more to be expected in the near future. This field started in the mid-1980s with the discovery of the GMR effect, recently awarded with the Nobel prize to Albert Fert and Peter Grünberg. The present volume covers the most important and most timely aspects of magnetic heterostructures, including spin torque effects, spin injection, spin transport, spin fluctuations, proximity effects, and electrical control of spin valves. The chapters are written by internationally recognized experts in their respective fields and provide an overview of the latest status.

Application of quantum mechanics in physics and chemistry often entails manipulation and evaluation of sums and products of coupling coefficients for the theory of angular momentum. Challenges encountered in such work can be tamed by graphical techniques that provide both the insight and analytical power. The book is the first step-by-step exposition of a graphical method grounded in established work. Copious exercises recover standard results but demonstrate the power to go beyond.

This monograph is the first to give a comprehensive account of the theory of semiconductor cavity quantum electrodynamics for such systems in the weak-coupling and strong-coupling regimes. It presents the important concepts, together with relevant, recent experimental results.

Cosmology deals with the current state of thinking about the basic questions at the center of the field of cosmology. More emphasis than usual is put on the connections to related domains of science, such as geometry, relativity, thermodynamics, particle physics, and - in particular - on the intrinsic connections between the different topics. The chapters are illustrated with many figures that are as exact as currently possible, e.g. in the case of geometry and relativity. Readers acquire a graduate-level knowledge of cosmology as it is required to understand the cosmological impact of their particular research topics, as well as an introduction into the current research in the field.

This book summarizes some of the most exciting theoretical developments in the topological phenomena of skyrmions in noncentrosymmetric magnetic systems over recent decades. After presenting pedagogical backgrounds to the Berry phase and homotopy theory, the author systematically discusses skyrmions in the order of their development, from the Ginzburg-Landau theory, CP1 theory, Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert theory, and Monte Carlo numerical approaches. Modern topics, such as the skyrmion-electron interaction, skyrmion-magnon interaction, and various generation mechanisms of the skyrmion are examined with a focus on their general theoretical aspects. The book concludes with a chapter on the skyrmion phenomena in the cold atom context. The topics are presented at a level accessible to beginning graduate students without a substantial background in field theory. The book can also be used as a text for those who wish to engage in the physics of skyrmions in magnetic systems, or as an introduction to the various theoretical methods used in studying current condensed-matter systems.

The first part provides a general introduction to the electronic structure of quasi-two-dimensional systems with a particular focus on group-theoretical methods. The main part of the monograph is devoted to spin-orbit coupling phenomena at zero and nonzero magnetic fields. Throughout the book, the main focus is on a thorough discussion of the physical ideas and a detailed interpretation of the results. Accurate numerical calculations are complemented by simple and transparent analytical models that capture the important physics.

Introduction and handbook to high-power laser-matter interaction, laser generated plasma, nonlinear waves, particle acceleration, nonlinear optics, nonlinear dynamics, radiation transport, it provides a systematic review of the major results and developments of the past 25 years.