Symmetry in Statistical Mechanics and Complex Dynamical Systems
A special issue of Symmetry (ISSN 2073-8994). This special issue belongs to the section "Physics".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 April 2024 | Viewed by 3661
Special Issue Editor
Interests: nonlinear dynamics and chaos; thermodynamics; statistical mechanics; fractals; wavelets; cellular automata; coupled map lattices; time-series analysis; spatiotemporal pattern formation; shape theory
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Symmetry, entropy and action are, arguably, the three main concepts at the heart of physics. Although the connections between symmetry and action have been long explored and are still the subject of intense research nowadays (from Galilean invariance to Noether’s theorem and gauge field theories) those of symmetry and entropy, on one hand, and action and entropy, on the other, remain poorly understood.
The dynamical and statistical behavior of complex systems is strongly constrained by symmetry. For example, symmetry in nonlinear partial differential equations leads to drawing important conclusions on the sets of their possible spatiotemporal solutions thanks to the equivariance theorem. Other systems, such as cellular automata, allow the interplay between symmetry, complexity and entropy increase to be explored. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is already present in time-reversible cellular automata and the Loschmidt paradox admits an elegant solution in these systems in terms of the huge (computable) size of the sets of initial conditions that lead to an entropy increase compared to those that would lead to trajectories violating the Second Law.
This Special Issue highlights symmetry applications and consequences in the dynamical behavior of complex systems whose trajectories can be computationally or analytically studied, as well as those for which insight can be gained by statistical mechanical methods. Dynamical systems like cellular automata, coupled map lattices, systems of nonlinear differential equations and nonlinear partial differential equations will be explored paying special emphasis on those cases for which symmetry is helpful to establish structural features of the resulting attractors and complexity measures.
Dr. Vladimir García-Morales
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Symmetry is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- cellular automata
- coupled map lattices
- nonlinear partial differential equations
- entropy
- partition function
- complexity
- nonlinear oscillators
- exactly solved models
- computer simulations
