Springer Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking, Self-Trapping, and Josephson Oscillations: 1 (Progress in Optical Science and Photonics, 1)

This volume collects a a number of contributions on spontaneous symmetry breaking. Current studies in this general field are going ahead at a full speed. The book present review chapters which give an overview on the major break throughs of recent years. It covers a number of different physical settings which are introduced when a nonlinearity is added to the underlying symmetric problems and its strength exceeds a certain critical value. The corresponding loss of symmetry, called spontaneous symmetry breaking, alias self-trapping into asymmetric states is extensively discussed in this book. The book presents both active theoretical studies of spontaneous symmetry breaking effects as well as experimental findings, chiefly for Bose-Einstein-Condensates with the self-repulsive nonlinearity, and also for photorefractive media in optics. From the Back Cover This volume collects a number of contributions on the general theme of spontaneous symmetry breaking in nonlinear systems, and related topics. Current studies in these areas are going ahead at a full speed. Chapters included into the book present an overview on major recent achievements. They cover a number of different physical settings, which are introduced when a nonlinearity is added to underlying symmetric configurations. The spontaneous symmetry breaking, alias self-trapping into asymmetric states, happens when the strength of the nonlinearity exceeds a certain critical value. A related generic dynamical effect appears in the form of Josephson oscillations between mutually symmetric states. Theoretical studies of these phenomena, as well as related experimental findings, are extensively discussed in the book - chiefly, in the context of Bose-Einstein condensates and nonlinear optics.