This volume contains the papers presented at the International Workshop on the Cur rent Problems in Condensed Matter: Theory and Experiment, held at Cocoyoc, More los, Mexico, during January 5-9, 1997. The participants had come from Argentina, Austria, Chile, England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Switzerland, and the USA. The presentations at the Workshop provided state-of-art reviews of many of the most important problems, currently under study, in condensed matter. Equally important to all the participants in the workshop was the fact that we had come to honor a friend, Karl Heinz Bennemann, on his sixty-fifth birthday. This Festschrift is just a small measure of recognition of the intellectualleadership of Professor Bennemann in the field and equally important, as a sincere tribute to his qualities as an exceptional friend, college and mentor. Those who have had the privilege to work closely with Karl have been deeply touched by Karl's inquisitive scientific mind as well as by bis kindness and generosity.

The physics of disordered systems has enjoyed a resurgence of interest in the last decade. New concepts such as weak localization, interaction effects and Coulomb gap, have been developed for the transport properties of metals and insulators. With the fabrication of smaller and smaller samples and the routine availability of low temperatures, new physics has emerged from the studies of small devices. The new field goes under the name "mesoscopic physics" and has rapidly developed, both experimentally and theoretically. This book is designed to review the current status of the field.Most of the chapters in the book are devoted to the development of new ideas in the field. They include reviews of experimental observations of conductance fluctuations and the Aharonov-Bohm oscillations in disordered metals, theoretical and experimental work on low frequency noise in small disordered systems, transmittancy fluctuations through random barriers, and theoretical work on the distribution of fluctuation quantities such as conductance. Two chapters are not connected directly to the mesoscopic fluctuations but deal with small systems. They cover the effects of Coulomb interaction in the tunneling through the small junctions, and experimental results on ballistic transport through a perfect conductor.

This primer is aimed at elevating graduate students of condensed matter theory to a level where they can engage in independent research. Topics covered include second quantisation, path and functional field integration, mean-field theory and collective phenomena.

An introduction to the area of condensed matter in a nutshell. This textbook covers the standard topics, including crystal structures, energy bands, phonons, optical properties, ferroelectricity, superconductivity, and magnetism.

This volume contains a selection of important papers by P-G de Gennes (1991 Nobel Prize Winner in Physics) which have had a long-lasting impact on our understanding of condensed matter (solid state physics, liquid crystals, polymers, interfaces, wetting and adhesion). A typical example is the original article on “reptation” of polymer chains. The author has added some “afterthoughts” to the main papers (explaining their successes or weaknesses), and some current views on each special problem. Complex systems (polymers or granular matters, etc) are explained without heavy calculations — using simple scaling laws as the main tool.