Disordered systems are ubiquitous in nature and their study remains a profound and challenging subject of current research. Ideas and methods from the physics of Disordered systems have been fruitfully applied to several fields ranging from computer science to neuroscience. This book contains a selection of lectures delivered at the 'SERC School on Disordered Systems', spanning topics from classic results to frontier areas of research in this field. Spin glasses, disordered Ising models, quantum disordered systems, structural glasses, dilute magnets, interfaces in random field systems and disordered vortex systems are among the topics discussed in the text, in chapters authored by active researchers in the field, including Bikas Chakrabarti, Arnab Das, Deepak Kumar, Gautam Menon, G. Ravikumar, Purusattam Ray, Srikanth Sastry and Prabodh Shukla. This book provides a gentle and comprehensive introduction to the physics of disordered systems and is aimed at graduate students and young scientists either working in or intending to enter this exciting field. It should also serve as a general reference for students and practicing researchers alike.

Publisher Description

Focuses on an important aspect of this highly diversified area of condensed state physics: the one-body approximation in the theory of disordered systems. It describes the scope of problems within the framework of this approximation, its use in formulating several basic concepts, and its value in revealing many characteristic features of disordered systems. The book's main focus is on the density of states and the space-time correlation functions, and on their basic thermodynamic and kinetic characteristics. Among the many areas explored are the general properties of the one-body models frequently used and descriptions of selected one-dimensional problems, including closed dynamical equations; these are then used to thoroughly explore the density of states for several systems. In addition, some of the more complex characteristics of one-dimensional disordered systems are examined using the Fokkerr-Planck equations developed earlier in the text. Also includes a description of the general structure of concentration expansions, giving examples of simple applications.

Originally published in 1979, this book discusses how the physical and chemical properties of disordered systems such as liquids, glasses, alloys, amorphous semiconductors, polymer solutions and magnetic materials can be explained by theories based on a variety of mathematical models, including random assemblies of hard spheres, tetrahedrally-bonded networks and lattices of 'spins'. The text describes these models and the various mathematical theories by which the observable properties are derived. Techniques and concepts such as the mean field and coherent approximations, graphical summation, percolation, scaling and the renormalisation group are explained and applied. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in theoretical and experimental physics.

Disordered systems are statistical mechanics models in random environments. This lecture notes volume concerns the equilibrium properties of a few carefully chosen examples of disordered Ising models. The approach is that of probability theory and mathematical physics, but the subject matter is of interest also to condensed matter physicists, material scientists, applied mathematicians and theoretical computer scientists. (The two main types of systems considered are disordered ferromagnets and spin glasses. The emphasis is on questions concerning the number of ground states (at zero temperature) or the number of pure Gibbs states (at nonzero temperature). A recurring theme is that these questions are connected to interesting issues concerning percolation and related models of geometric/combinatorial probability. One question treated at length concerns the low temperature behavior of short-range spin glasses: whether and in what sense Parisi's analysis of the meanfield (or "infinite-range") model is relevant. Closely related is the more general conceptual issue of how to approach the thermodynamic (i.e., infinite volume) limit in systems which may have many complex competing states. This issue has been addressed in recent joint work by the author and Dan Stein and the book provides a mathematically coherent presentation of their approach.)

This self-contained textbook aims to introduce the physics of structurally disordered condensed systems at the level of advanced undergraduate and graduate students. The topics discussed include the geometry and symmetries of the building blocks commonly used to obtain atomic structures, the various kinds of disorder, the phenomenology and the main theories of the glass transition, investigation of the structure of amorphous systems, the dependence of system structure on its dimensions (clusters), and the case of positional order in the absence of translational order (quasicrystals).

This textbook is the result of the enhancement of several courses on non-equilibrium statistics, stochastic processes, stochastic differential equations, anomalous diffusion and disorder. The target audience includes students of physics, mathematics, biology, chemistry, and engineering at undergraduate and graduate level with a grasp of the basic elements of mathematics and physics of the fourth year of a typical undergraduate course. The little-known physical and mathematical concepts are described in sections and specific exercises throughout the text, as well as in appendices. Physical-mathematical motivation is the main driving force for the development of this text. It presents the academic topics of probability theory and stochastic processes as well as new educational aspects in the presentation of non-equilibrium statistical theory and stochastic differential equations.. In particular it discusses the problem of irreversibility in that context and the dynamics of Fokker-Planck. An introduction on fluctuations around metastable and unstable points are given. It also describes relaxation theory of non-stationary Markov periodic in time systems. The theory of finite and infinite transport in disordered networks, with a discussion of the issue of anomalous diffusion is introduced. Further, it provides the basis for establishing the relationship between quantum aspects of the theory of linear response and the calculation of diffusion coefficients in amorphous systems.