Surface properties play a very important role in many perception tasks. Object recognition, navigation, and inspection use surface properties ex tensively. Characterizing surfaces at different scales in given data is often the first and possibly the most important step. Most early research in ma chine perception relied on only very coarse characterization of surfaces. In the last few years, surface characterization has been receiving due attention. Dr. T. J. Fan is one of the very few researchers who designed and im plemented a complete system for object recognition. He studied issues re...

"The present volume is a welcome edition to the growing number of books that develop geometrical language and use it to describe new developments in particle physics ... It provides clear treatment that is accessible to graduate students with a knowledge of advanced calculus and of classical physics.... The second half of the book deals with the principles of differential geometry and its applications, with a mathematical machinery of very wide range. Here clear line drawings and illustrations supplement the multitude of mathematical definitions. This section, in its clarity and pedagogy, is...

The study of semiconductor heterostructures started more than forty years ago. In the 1980s this area of research moved to the forefront of semiconduc tor physics, largely due to progress in growth technologies which are now capable of producing ultrathin layers (up to a few monolayers) of different semiconductor materials. The availability of structures with nearly ideal, well-controlled properties has made semiconductor heterostructures a test ing ground for solid-state physics. These structures have had a profound impact on basic research in semiconductor physics by opening new possibil...

Superstrings and M-theory: provocative and controversial, but unarguably one of the most interesting and active areas of research in current physics. Called by some, "the theory of everything," superstrings may solve a problem that has eluded physicists for the past 50 years, the final unification of the two great theories of the twentieth century, general relativity and quantum field theory. Now, here is a thoroughly revised, second edition of a course-tested comprehensive introductory graduate text on superstrings which stresses the most current areas of interest, not covered in other...

Laser cooling is a relatively new technique that has led to insights into the behavior of atoms as well as confirming with striking detail some of the fundamental notions of quantum mechanics, such as the condensation predicted by S.N. Bose. This elegant technique, whereby atoms, molecules, and even microscopic beads of glass, are trapped in small regions of free space by beams of light and subsequently moved at will using other beams, provides a useful research tool for the study of individual atoms and clusters of atoms, for investigating the details of chemical reactions, and even for...

Intended for advanced undergraduates and beginning graduate students who have some basic knowledge of optics and quantum mechanics, this text begins with a review of the relevant results of quantum mechanics before turning to the electromagnetic interactions involved in slowing and trapping atoms and ions, in both magnetic and optical traps. The concluding chapters discuss a broad range of applications, from atomic clocks and studies of collision processes to diffraction and interference of atomic beams at optical lattices and Bose-Einstein condensation.

Small particles in gaseous systems are called clusters, aerosols, dust particles, Aitken particles, etc., depending on their size, the media where they are observed, and the field of science in which they are studied. Below we call clusters systems of bound atoms or molecules containing from several atoms (molecules) up to thousands, so that their structure can be essential for determining their properties. If clusters are like bulk systems, we call them small particles. The principal pecu liarity of clusters is with respect to magic numbers of cluster atoms that correspond to a heightened...

The origins of multiple scattering theory (MST) can be traced back to Lord Rayleigh's publication of a paper treating the electrical resistivity of an ar ray of spheres, which appeared more than a century ago. At its most basic, MST provides a technique for solving a linear partial differential equa tion defined over a region of space by dividing space into nonoverlapping subregions, solving the differential equation for each of these subregions separately and then assembling these partial solutions into a global phys ical solution that is smooth and continuous over the entire region. This...

String theory continues to progress at an astonishing rate, and this book brings the reader up to date with the latest developments and the most active areas of research in the field. Building on the foundations laid in his Introduction to Superstrings and M Theory, Professor Kaku discusses such topics as the classification of conformal string theories, knot theory, the Yang-Baxter relation, quantum groups, and the insights into 11-dimensional strings recently obtained from M-theory. New chapters discuss such topics as Seiberg- Witten theory, M theory and duality., and D-branes. Several...

This book is intended to provide a general introduction to the physics of quantized fields and many-body physics. It is based on a two-semester sequence of courses taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign at various times between 1985 and 1997. The students taking all or part of the sequence had interests ranging from particle and nuclear theory through quantum optics to condensed matter physics experiment. The book does not cover as much ground as some texts. This is because I have tried to concentrate on the basic conceptual issues that many students find difficult. For a...