In the past 50 years, quantum physicists have discovered, and experimentally demonstrated, a phenomenon which they termed superoscillations. Aharonov and his collaborators showed that superoscillations naturally arise when dealing with weak values, a notion that provides a fundamentally different way to regard measurements in quantum physics. From a mathematical point of view, superoscillating functions are a superposition of small Fourier components with a bounded Fourier spectrum, which result, when appropriately summed, in a shift that can be arbitrarily large, and well outside the spectrum. The purpose of this work is twofold: on one hand the authors provide a self-contained survey of the existing literature, in order to offer a systematic mathematical approach to superoscillations; on the other hand, they obtain some new and unexpected results, by showing that superoscillating sequences can be seen of as solutions to a large class of convolution equations and can therefore be treated within the theory of analytically uniform spaces. In particular, the authors will also discuss the persistence of the superoscillatory behavior when superoscillating sequences are taken as initial values of the Schrödinger equation and other equations.

This text is a self-contained second course on mathematical methods dealing with topics in linear algebra and multivariate calculus that can be applied to statistics.

Michael Berry is a theoretical physicist who has contributed to a wide variety of areas in quantum mechanics, optics and related mathematics, linked by the geometrical aspects of waves, especially phase. This collection of his selected published and unpublished papers, reviews, tributes to other scientists, speeches and other works ranges from the technical to the popular. It is organized by the themes of his significant scientific contributions. Detailed introductions emphasize the rich connections between the different themes. An essential read for physicists, mathematicians, students and philosophers of science.

Yakir Aharonov is one of the leading figures in the foundations of quantum physics. His contributions range from the celebrated Aharonov-Bohm effect (1959), to the more recent theory of weak measurements (whose experimental confirmations were recently ranked as the two most important results of physics in 2011). This volume will contain 27 original articles, contributed by the most important names in quantum physics, in honor of Aharonov's 80-th birthday. Sections include "Quantum mechanics and reality," with contributions from Nobel Laureates David Gross and Sir Anthony Leggett and Yakir Aharonov, S. Popescu and J. Tollaksen; "Building blocks of Nature" with contributions from Francois Englert (co-proposer of the scalar boson along with Peter Higgs); "Time and Cosmology" with contributions from Leonard Susskind, P.C.W. Davies and James Hartle; "Universe as a Wavefunction," with contributions from Phil Pearle, Sean Carroll and David Albert; "Nonlocality," with contributions from Nicolas Gisin, Daniel Rohrlich, Ray Chiao and Lev Vaidman; and finishing with multiple sections on weak values with contributions from A. Jordan, A. Botero, A.D. Parks, L. Johansen, F. Colombo, I. Sabadini, D.C. Struppa, M.V. Berry, B. Reznik, N. Turok, G.A.D. Briggs, Y. Gefen, P. Kwiat, and A. Pines, among others.

In this paper, the authors provide a combinatorial/numerical method to establish new hypercontractivity estimates in group von Neumann algebras. They illustrate their method with free groups, triangular groups and finite cyclic groups, for which they obtain optimal time hypercontractive inequalities with respect to the Markov process given by the word length and with an even integer. Interpolation and differentiation also yield general hypercontrativity for via logarithmic Sobolev inequalities. The authors' method admits further applications to other discrete groups without small loops as far as the numerical part—which varies from one group to another—is implemented and tested on a computer. The authors also develop another combinatorial method which does not rely on computational estimates and provides (non-optimal) hypercontractive inequalities for a larger class of groups/lengths, including any finitely generated group equipped with a conditionally negative word length, like infinite Coxeter groups. The authors' second method also yields hypercontractivity bounds for groups admitting a finite dimensional proper cocycle. Hypercontractivity fails for conditionally negative lengths in groups satisfying Kazhdan's property (T).

The authors consider scalar lattice differential equations posed on square lattices in two space dimensions. Under certain natural conditions they show that wave-like solutions exist when obstacles (characterized by “holes”) are present in the lattice. Their work generalizes to the discrete spatial setting the results obtained in Berestycki, Hamel, and Matuno (2009) for the propagation of waves around obstacles in continuous spatial domains. The analysis hinges upon the development of sub and super-solutions for a class of discrete bistable reaction-diffusion problems and on a generalization of a classical result due to Aronson and Weinberger that concerns the spreading of localized disturbances.

A Guide through the Mysteries of Quantum Physics! Yakir Aharonov is one of the pioneers in measuring theory, the nature of quantum correlations, superselection rules, and geometric phases and has been awarded numerous scientific honors. The author has contributed monumental concepts to theoretical physics, especially the Aharonov-Bohm effect and the Aharonov-Casher effect. Together with Daniel Rohrlich, Israel, he has written a pioneering work on the remaining mysteries of quantum mechanics. From the perspective of a preeminent researcher in the fundamental aspects of quantum mechanics, the text combines mathematical rigor with penetrating and concise language. More than 200 exercises introduce readers to the concepts and implications of quantum mechanics that have arisen from the experimental results of the recent two decades. With students as well as researchers in mind, the authors give an insight into that part of the field, which led Feynman to declare that "nobody understands quantum mechanics". * Free solutions manual available for lecturers at www.wiley-vch.de/supplements/