Description
Book SynopsisThis book is concerned with the study in two dimensions of stationary solutions of uɛ of a complex valued Ginzburg-Landau equation involving a small parameter ɛ. Such problems are related to questions occurring in physics, e.g., phase transition phenomena in superconductors and superfluids. The parameter ɛ has a dimension of a length which is usually small. Thus, it is of great interest to study the asymptotics as ɛ tends to zero.
One of the main results asserts that the limit u-star of minimizers uɛ exists. Moreover, u-star is smooth except at a finite number of points called defects or vortices in physics. The number of these defects is exactly the Brouwer degree – or winding number – of the boundary condition. Each singularity has degree one – or as physicists would say, vortices are quantized.
The material presented in this book covers mostly original results by the authors. It assumes a moderate knowledge of nonlinear functional analysis, partial differential equations, and complex functions. This book is designed for researchers and graduate students alike, and can be used as a one-semester text. The present softcover reprint is designed to make this classic text available to a wider audience.
Table of ContentsIntroduction.- Energy Estimates for S1-Valued Maps.- A Lower Bound for the Energy of S1-Valued Maps on Perforated Domains.- Some Basic Estimates for uɛ.- Toward Locating the Singularities: Bad Discs and Good Discs.- An Upper Bound for the Energy of uɛ away from the Singularities.- uɛ_n: u-star is Born! - u-star Coincides with THE Canonical Harmonic Map having Singularities (aj).- The Configuration (aj) Minimizes the Renormalization Energy W.- Some Additional Properties of uɛ.- Non-Minimizing Solutions of the Ginzburg-Landau Equation.- Open Problems.
