Non-equilibrium Statistical Physics with Application to Disordered Systems

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.

Prof. Dr. Manuel Osvaldo Caceres did his PhD in Physics, in anomalous transport in heterogeneous media in 1986 at the Instituto Balseiro, Argentina. He had several Post-Doc stays in Spain, Germany and Belgium, therefore getting himself into the new trends of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics. His main contributions were in: dynamical localization, nonlinear optics, stochastic liquid crystals, pattern formation in fluids, and explosive systems. In 2005, he got an Associate Professor position at the International Center of Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Trieste, Italy, after which he returned to his country to teach non-equilibrium statistical mechanics and disorder.

Dr. Manuel O. Caceres is currently Full Professor at the Instituto Balseiro, Univ. Nac. Cuyo, Argentina. Senior Researcher at Centro Atómico Bariloche, Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica (CNEA), Argentina. Former Head of the Statistical Division at the Centro Atomico Bariloche, CNEA, Argentina.

He has published more than a hundred of peer reviewed papers in international journals in the fields of anomalous transport in solid state physics, diffusion-advection in random fluids, pattern formation in stochastic Rayleigh-Bénard experiments, phenomenology in quantum dissipation, and theory of extreme densities in random media. He also published a textbook on statistical non-equilibrium mechanics and random media, in Spanish.