Prospects in Mathematical Physics

This work contains 13 papers presented at the Young Researchers Symposium of the July 2003 14th International Congress on Mathematical Physics, including papers by two of the three winners of the meeting's Henri Poincaré Prize. The goal of the book is to illustrate various promising areas of mathematical physics in a way that is accessible to researchers at the beginning of their careers. Paper topics include equilibrium statistical mechanics of quantum lattice systems, the rate of local equilibration in kinetic theory, bifurcations of relative equilibria in simple mechanical systems, and generating spectral gaps by geometry. Other subjects are string theory and knot invariants, quantum geometry of Riemann surfaces, and scaling algebras for charge carrying quantum fields and superselection structure at short distances. There is no subject index. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)