The central theme of this lecture collection is quantum dynamics, regarded mostly as the dynamics of entanglement and that of decoherence phenomena. Both these concepts appear to refer to the behavior of surprisingly fragile features of quantum systems supposed to model quantum memories and to implement quantum date processing routines. This collection may serve as an essential resource for those interested in both theoretical description and practical applications of fundamentals of quantum mechanics.

The present volume contains expanded and substantially reworked records of invitedlecturesdeliveredduringthe38thKarpaczWinterSchoolofTheoretical Physics on Dynamical Semigroups: Dissipation, Chaos, Quanta, which took placeinLadek, Zdr oj, (Poland)intheperiod6 15February2002. Themainpurposeoftheschoolwastocreateaplatformfortheconfrontation ofviewpointsandresearchmethodologiesrepresentedbytwogroupsofexperts actually working in the very same area of theoretical physics. This situation is quite distinct in non-equilibrium statistical physics of open systems, where...