This research monograph provides a pedagogical and self-contained introduction to non-equilibrium quantum particle dynamics for inhomogeneous systems, up to and including a survey of recent breakthroughs pioneered by the authors and other groups.The theoretical approach is based on real-time Green’s functions (Keldysh Green’s functions), directly solving the two-time Kadanoff-Baym equations (KBE).This field has seen a rapid development over the last decade, with new applicati...

This book presents quantum kinetic theory in a comprehensive way. The focus is on density operator methods and on non-equilibrium Green functions. The theory allows to rigorously treat nonequilibrium dynamics in quantum many-body systems. Of particular interest are ultrafast processes in plasmas, condensed matter and trapped atoms that are stimulated by rapidly developing experiments with short pulse lasers and free electron lasers. To describe these experiments theoretically, the most pow...

This book provides the reader with an introduction to the physics of complex plasmas, a discussion of the specific scientific and technical challenges they present and an overview of their potential technological applications.Complex plasmas differ from conventional high-temperature plasmas in several ways: they may contain additional species, including nano meter- to micrometer-sized particles, negative ions, molecules and radicals and they may exhibit strong correlations or quant...

This thesis presents a systematic study of the orbital evolution, gravitational wave radiation, and merger remnant of the black hole–neutron star binary merger in full general relativity for the first time. Numerical-relativity simulations are performed using an adaptive mesh refinement code, SimulAtor for Compact objects in Relativistic Astrophysics (SACRA), which adopts a wide variety of zero-temperature equations of state for the neutron star matter.Gravitational waves provide u...

Following the pioneering discovery of alpha clustering and of molecular resonances, the field of nuclear clustering is today one of those domains of heavy-ion nuclear physics that faces the greatest challenges, yet also contains the greatest opportunities. After many summer schools and workshops, in particular over the last decade, the community of nuclear molecular physicists has decided to collaborate in producing a comprehensive collection of lectures and tutorial reviews covering the f...

How much knowledge can we gain about a physical system and to what degree can we control it? In quantum optical systems, such as ion traps or neutral atoms in cavities, single particles and their correlations can now be probed in a way that is fundamentally limited only by the laws of quantum mechanics. In contrast, quantum many-body systems pose entirely new challenges due to the enormous number of microscopic parameters and their small length- and short time-scales.This thesis des...

Optical coatings, i.e. multilayer stacks composed from a certain number of thin individual layers, are an essential part of any optical system necessary to tailor the properties of the optical surfaces. Hereby, the performance of any optical coating is defined by a well-balanced interplay between the properties of the individual coating materials and the geometrical parameters (such as film thickness) which define their arrangement. In all scientific books dealing with the performance of o...

Discrete periodic structures play an important role in physics, and have opened up an exciting new area of investigation in recent years. Questions relating to the control of light in such structures still represent a major challenge. It is this highly active field that is addressed in the present thesis. Using the model system of a photorefractive nonlinearity that allows one to simultaneously create and control photonic lattices by light, the author obtains a comprehensive picture of the...

This introductory text presents the basic aspects and most important features of various types of resonances and anti-resonances in dynamical systems. In particular, for each resonance, it covers the theoretical concepts, illustrates them with case studies, and reviews the available information on mechanisms, characterization, numerical simulations, experimental realizations, possible quantum analogues, applications and significant advances made over the years.Resonances are one of...

Nuclei and nuclear reactions offer a unique setting for investigating three (and in some cases even all four) of the fundamental forces in nature. Nuclei have been shown – mainly by performing scattering experiments with electrons, muons and neutrinos – to be extended objects with complex internal structures: constituent quarks; gluons, whose exchange binds the quarks together; sea-quarks, the ubiquitous virtual quark-antiquark pairs and last but not least, clouds of virtual mesons, surrou...

Introduction to Epitaxy provides the essential information for a comprehensive upper-level graduate course treating the crystalline growth of semiconductor heterostructures. Heteroepitaxy represents the basis of advanced electronic and optoelectronic devices today and is considered one of the top fields in materials research. The book covers the structural and electronic properties of strained epitaxial layers, the thermodynamics and kinetics of layer growth, and the description of the maj...

Ge and III–V compounds, semiconductors with high carrier mobilities, are candidates to replace Si as the channel in MOS devices. 2D materials – like graphene and MoS_2 – are also envisioned to replace Si in the future.This thesis is devoted to the first-principles modeling of the vibrational properties of these novel channel materials.The first part of the thesis focuses on the vibrational properties of various oxides on Ge, making it possible to identify the vibrational si...