About the book

The modern theory of nonlinear phenomena is going through a period of explosive growth. Each “invention” in the field is disseminated rapidly, generating general interest and unexpected applications. This was for instance the case with solitons, strange attractors, and stochasticity. That scientists from each of the different branches of the theory of nonlinear phenomena should cooperate needs no proof, and the value of this cooperation could be seen at a conference held in Kiev on nonlinear and turbulent processes in physics.* The same approach has been adopted for this collection, which includes articles on regular nonlinear phenomena (vortices, solitons, auto-waves) and some on stochasticity and turbulence. In addition, the collection includes two mathematical articles that develop the Kolmogorov-Amold-Moser theory, the importance of which for the theory of nonlinear dynamic systems is undoubted.

The articles are to some degree grouped around the nonlinear problems of plasma physics and hydrodynamics, in their broadest sense.

Hydrodynamics and plasma physics are traditional sources of exciting problems and ideas for the physics of nonlinear phenomena. We need only recall the classical examples of the discovery of solitons in shallow water, the exact integrability of the Korteweg-de Vries equation, and the discoveries of a strange attractor in the Lorcntz system and stochasticity in Hamiltonian systems with small numbers of degrees of freedom.

These ideas and results, all stimulated by problems in hydrodynamics and plasma physics, quickly gained more general significance for physics as a whole. In turn, many new and efficient techniques are tested on such traditionally difficult subjects as turbulence. For instance, there is the recent application to turbulence of the renormalization group methods, which were successfully employed first in field theory and the physics of phase transitions.

Contents

1. Vortices In Plasma and Hydrodynamics
2. Oscillations and Bifurcations in Reversible Systems
3. Regular and Chaotic Dynamics of Particles In a Magnetic Field
4. The Renormalization Group Method and Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser Theory
5. Nonlinear Problems of Turbulent Dynamo
6. Problems of the Theory of Strong Turbulence and Topological Solitons
7. Self-Oscillations and Auto-Waves in Chemical Systems
8. Auto-Waves In Biologically Active Media