Spontaneous pattern formation in nonlinear dissipative systems far from equilibrium occurs in a variety of settings in nature and technology, and has applications ranging from nonlinear optics through solid and fluid mechanics, physical chemistry and chemical engineering to biology. This book explores the forefront of current research, describing in-depth the analytical methods that elucidate the complex evolution of nonlinear dissipative systems.

Spontaneous pattern formation in nonlinear dissipative systems far from equilibrium occurs in a variety of settings in nature and technology, and has applications ranging from nonlinear optics through solid and fluid mechanics, physical chemistry and chemical engineering to biology. This book explores the forefront of current research, describing in-depth the analytical methods that elucidate the complex evolution of nonlinear dissipative systems.

The book deals with modern methods of nonlinear stability theory applied to problems of continuous media mechanics in the presence of interfaces, with applications to materials science, chemical engineering, heat transfer technologies, as well as in combustion and other reaction-diffusion systems. Interfaces play a dominant role at small scales, and their correct modeling is therefore also crucial in the rapidly expanding fields of microfluidics and nanotechnologies. To this aim, the book combines contributions of eminent specialists in the field, with a special emphasis on rigorous and predictive approaches. Other goals of this volume are to allow the reader to identify key problems of high scientific value, and to see the similarity between a variety of seemingly different physical problems.

This book presents recent advances, new ideas and novel techniques related to the field of nonlinear dynamics, including localized pattern formation, self-organization and chaos. Various natural systems ranging from nonlinear optics to mechanics, fluids and magnetic are considered. The aim of this book is to gather specialists from these various fields of research to promote cross-fertilization and transfer of knowledge between these active research areas. In particular, nonlinear optics and laser physics constitute an important part in this issue due to the potential applications for all-optical control of light, optical storage, and information processing. Other possible applications include the generation of ultra-short pulses using all-fiber cavities.

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 book summarizes the main advances in the field of nonlinear evolution and pattern formation caused by longwave instabilities in fluids. It will allow readers to master the multiscale asymptotic methods and become familiar with applications of these methods in a variety of physical problems. Longwave instabilities are inherent to a variety of systems in fluid dynamics, geophysics, electrodynamics, biophysics, and many others. The techniques of the derivation of longwave amplitude equations, as well as the analysis of numerous nonlinear equations, are discussed throughout. This book will be of value to researchers and graduate students in applied mathematics, physics, and engineering, in particular within the fields of fluid mechanics, heat and mass transfer theory, and nonlinear dynamics.

We present an improved and enlarged version of our book Nonlinear - namics of Chaotic and Stochastic Systems published by Springer in 2002. Basically, the new edition of the book corresponds to its ?rst version. While preparingthiseditionwemadesomeclari?cationsinseveralsectionsandalso corrected the misprints noticed in some formulas. Besides, three new sections have been added to Chapter 2. They are “Statistical Properties of Dynamical Chaos,” “E?ects of Synchronization in Extended Self-Sustained Oscillatory Systems,” and “Synchronization in Living Systems.” The sections indicated re?ect the most interesting results obtained by the authors after publication of the ?rst edition. We hope that the new edition of the book will be of great interest for a widesectionofreaderswhoarealreadyspecialistsorthosewhoarebeginning research in the ?elds of nonlinear oscillation and wave theory, dynamical chaos, synchronization, and stochastic process theory. Saratov, Berlin, and St. Louis V.S. Anishchenko November 2006 A.B. Neiman T.E. Vadiavasova V.V. Astakhov L. Schimansky-Geier Preface to the First Edition Thisbookisdevotedtotheclassicalbackgroundandtocontemporaryresults on nonlinear dynamics of deterministic and stochastic systems. Considerable attentionisgiventothee?ectsofnoiseonvariousregimesofdynamicsystems with noise-induced order. On the one hand, there exists a rich literature of excellent books on n- linear dynamics and chaos; on the other hand, there are many marvelous monographs and textbooks on the statistical physics of far-from-equilibrium andstochasticprocesses.Thisbookisanattempttocombinetheapproachof nonlinear dynamics based on the deterministic evolution equations with the approach of statistical physics based on stochastic or kinetic equations. One of our main aims is to show the important role of noise in the organization and properties of dynamic regimes of nonlinear dissipative systems.