Aerosols, which are gas-phase dispersions of particulate matter, draw upon and con tribute to multidisciplinary work in technology and the natural sciences. As has been true throughout the history of science with other fields of interest whose un derlying disciplinary structure was either unclear or insufficiently well developed to contribute effectively to those fields, "aerosol science" has. developed its own methods and lore somewhat sequestered from the main lines of contemporary physical thought. Indeed, this independent development is the essential step in which syste matic or...

The renormalization-group approach is largely responsible for the considerable success which has been achieved in the last ten years in developing a complete quantitative theory of phase transitions. Before, there was a useful physical picture of phase transitions, but a general method for making accurate quantitative predictions was lacking. Existent theories, such as the mean-field theory of Landau, sometimes reproduce phase diagrams reliably but were known to fail qualitatively near critical points, where the critical behavior is particularly interesting be cause of its universal...

The structural. electronic and lattice properties of superconducting ternary com pounds are the subject of this Topics volume. Its companion volume (Topics in Cur rent Physics. Volume 34) deals primarily with the mutual interaction of supercon ductivity and magnetism in ternary compounds. These two volumes are the culmination of a project. started nearly two years ago. that was inspired by the intense re search effort. both experimental and theoretical. then being expended to explore and develop an understanding of the remarkable physical properties of ternary super conductors. Research...

This Topics in Current Physics (TCP) Volume 34 is concerned primarily with super- conductivity and magnetism, and the mutual interaction of these two phenomena in ternary rare earth compounds. It is the companion of TCP Volume 32 - Superconduc- tivity in Ternary Compounds: Structural, Electronic and Lattice Properties. The interplay between superconductivity and magnetism has intrigued theoreticians and experimentalists alike for more than two decades. V. L. Ginzburg first addressed the question of whether or not superconductivity and ferromagnetism could coexist in 1957, and B. T. Matthias...

This monograph covers a broad spectrum of topics in the very broad field of gas phase molecular collision dynamics. The Introduction previews each of the four fol lowing topics and attempts to sew them together with a common thread. In addition, a brief review of quantum reactive scattering is given there along with some gen eral remarks which highlight the difficulties in doing quantum reactive scatter ing calculations. The chapters are all written by theoreticians who are, of course, experts in the subjects they have written about. Three chapters, the ones by Secrest, Schatz, and the one by...

This volume deals with the interaction between moments of excited or radioactive nuclei and electromagnetic fields. The experimental techniques developed for the observation of this hyperfine interaction are governed by the lifetime of the nuc lear states in question. The dynamics of the interaction are reflected by the time dependence of the spatial distribution of the radioactive decay radiation. Basically, the experiments yield information on the energy shifts and/or splittings of the nuc lear levels. These quantities are determined essentially by the product of the nuc lear moment and the...

In the early 1970s, researchers in Canada, the Soviet Union and the United States discovered that powerful infrared laser pulses are capable of dissociating mole- cules such as SiF4 and SF6' This result, which was so unexpected that for some time the phenomenon of multiple-photon dissociation was not recognized in many cir- cumstances in which we now know that it occurs, was first publicized at a time when the possibility of using lasers for the separation of isotopes had attracted much attention in the scientific community. From the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, hun- dreds of experimental...

Almost fifteen years have now elapsed since the first observations of per sistent spectral hole-burning in inhomogeneously broadened absorption lines in solids. The fact that the spectral shape of an inhomogeneously broadened line can be locally modified for long periods of time has led to a large number of investigations of low-temperature photophysics and photochemistry that would not have been possible otherwise. Using hole burning, important information has been obtained about a variety of in teractions, including excited-state dephasing processes, host-guest dynam ics, proton tunnelling,...

Gas-phase photoacoustics are treated comprehensively for the first time in this book. Review articles by leading scientists in the respective research areas introduce their fields, review present knowledge and conclude with the latest developments and future prospects. Topics covered include the theory of photoacoustics in the frequency and time domains, acoustic resonator models, a great variety of experimental setups and techniques, studies of spectrocopy and fundamental kinetic processes such as energy transfer and chemical reactions, and applications such as air and exhaust monitoring and...

Review articles by leading scientists in their fields are brought together in this volume to provide a comprehensive treatment of photoacoustic, photothermal and photochemical processes at surfaces and in thin films. The articles introduce the fields, review present knowledge and conclude with latest developments and future prospects. Topics covered include laser-induced desorption, ablation and surface damage; surface acoustic waves; photothermal and photoacoustic characterization of thin films and interfaces; depth profiling in the frequency and time domains; remote testing and...