Dissipative Solitons: From Optics To Biology And Medicine

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The dissipative soliton concept is a fundamental extension of the concept of solitons in conservative and integrable systems. It includes ideas from three major sources, namely standard soliton theory developed since the 1960s, nonlinear dynamics theory, and Prigogine's ideas of systems far from equilibrium. These three sources also correspond to the three component parts of this novel paradigm. This book explains the above principles in detail and gives the reader various examples from optics, biology and medicine. These include laser systems, optical transmission lines, cortical networks, models of muscle contraction, localized vegetation structures and waves in brain tissues.


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Lecture Notes in Physics Founding Editors: W. Beiglb¨ock, J. Ehlers, K. Hepp, H. Weidenm¨uller Editorial Board R. Beig, Vienna, Austria W. Beiglb¨ock, Heidelberg, Germany W. Domcke, Garching, Germany B.-G. Englert, Singapore U. Frisch, Nice, France P. H¨anggi, Augsburg, Germany G. Hasinger, Garching, Germany W. Hillebrandt, Garching, Germany R. L. Jaffe, Cambridge, MA, USA W. Janke, Leipzig, Germany H. v. L¨ohneysen, Karlsruhe, Germany M. Mangano, Geneva, Switzerland J.-M. Raimond, Paris, France D. Sornette, Zurich, Switzerland S. Theisen, Potsdam, Germany W. Weise, Garching, Germany J. Zittartz, K¨oln, Germany The Lecture Notes in Physics The series Lecture Notes in Physics (LNP), founded in 1969, reports new developments in physics research and teaching – quickly and informally, but with a high quality and the explicit aim to summarize and communicate current knowledge in an accessible way. Books published in this series are conceived as bridging material between advanced graduate textbooks and the forefront of research and to serve three purposes: • to be a compact and modern up-to-date source of reference on a well-defined topic • to serve as an accessible introduction to the field to postgraduate students and nonspecialist researchers from related areas • to be a source of advanced teaching material for specialized seminars, courses and schools Both monographs and multi-author volumes will be considered for publication. Edited volumes should, however, consist of a very limited number of contributions only. Proceedings will not be considered for LNP. Volumes published in LNP are disseminated both in print and in electronic formats, the electronic archive being available at springerlink.com. The series content is indexed, abstracted and referenced by many abstracting and information services, bibliographic networks, subscription agencies, library networks, and consortia. Proposals should be sent to a member of the Editorial Board, or directly to the managing editor at Springer: Christian Caron Springer Heidelberg Physics Editorial Department I Tiergartenstrasse 17 69121 Heidelberg / Germany [email protected] N. Akhmediev A. Ankiewicz (Eds.) Dissipative Solitons: From Optics to Biology and Medicine 123 Nail Akhmediev Australian National University Optical Sciences Center Canberra ACT 0200 Australia [email protected] Adrian Ankiewicz Australian National University Optical Sciences Center Canberra ACT 0200 Australia [email protected] Akhmediev, N., Ankiewicz, A.(Eds.), Dissipative Solitons: From Optics to Biology and Medicine, Lect. Notes Phys. 751 (Springer, Berlin Heidelberg 2008), DOI 10.1007/ 978-3-540-78217-9 ISBN: 978-3-540-78216-2 e-ISBN: