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An introduction to stochastic processes and nonequilibrium statistical physics. Revised ed. (English) Zbl 1276.82003

Series on Advances in Statistical Mechanics 19. Hackensack, NJ: World Scientific (ISBN 978-981-4374-78-1/hbk). xvii, 315 p. (2012).
This book “aims to provide a compact and unified introduction to the most important aspects in the physics of non-equilibrium systems.” It is indeed compact having around 300 pages while still covering a wide range of material; the authors move from the Chapman-Kolmogorov equation to pattern and surface formation covering more classical topics like Onsager and BBGKY on the way.
The content is clearly explained and helpfully illustrated with a range of figures; it provides an interesting and enjoyable read. Because of the compact nature of the book, one regularly flips back to clarify earlier material, something made easy by clear sectioning and sub-titles. The presentation is via detailed formal (limits are interchanged without comment, etc.) mathematical arguments; these become less complete towards the end of the book.

MSC:

82-01 Introductory exposition (textbooks, tutorial papers, etc.) pertaining to statistical mechanics
60K40 Other physical applications of random processes
82B03 Foundations of equilibrium statistical mechanics
82C31 Stochastic methods (Fokker-Planck, Langevin, etc.) applied to problems in time-dependent statistical mechanics

Citations:

Zbl 0839.60093
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