V.S.Lebedev

P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute, Moscow, Russia

This volume presents a current review of knowledge on elementary collision processes of highly excited atoms and neutral particles. It provides the basic physical approaches and theoretical techniques for the description of a broad class of observed collision phenomena  in gases and low temperature plasmas involving Rydberg atoms. The author considers different mechanisms of inelastic and quasielastic collisions with a change in the principal and orbital quantum numbers, transitions between the fine-structure components, direct and associative ionisation, ion-pair formation and electron-ion recombination processes.

L.V.Dekhtyaruk, Kharkov State University

Yu.A.Kolesnichenko and V.G.Peschansky,

Institute for Low Temperature, Kharkov,Ukraine

This review describes a series of kinetic phenomena in metallic multilayers.

The kinetic properties of multilayers differ from the properties of both massive metals and thin films

V.V.Levitin, Zaporozhye State Technical University, Ukraine

Many properties of solids are related to crystal lattice oscillations and this phenomonen is of theoretical and practical significance. This review describes experimental investigations of heat atom vibrations and associated data including specific physical values which have been measured directly and also the methods for X-ray measurements of the mean-square atom displacements

V.A.Astapenko, Moscow Institute for Physics and Technology, Russia

This review presents results of recent investigations concerning the polarization and interference effects that arise in radiation processes such as bremsstrahlung on tagets with electron core, photo-effects in bichromatic electromagnetic field, femtosecond photon echo in nanocrystals and in associated phenomena.

Magnetic and magnetoelastic properties of antiferromagnets and superconductors in the vicinity of phase transitions induced by a magnetic field are considered. At these conditions inhomogeneous states appear in antiferromagnets, similar to either intermediate state type I superconductors or the mixed one in type II superconductors. The authors discuss the measurements for simple representatives of antiferromagnets and superconductors such as the transition metal based uni-axial two-sublattice antiferromagnetic insulator and superconducting dichalcogenide 2H-NbSe2, which revealed quantum oscillations of magnetostriction and its peculiarities in a peak effect regime. This book is intended for postgraduates and researchers in magnetic properties of strongly correlated electronic systems and for students of applied physics.

This review comprises papers presented at a scientific meeting in recognition of Sergei Ivanovich Syrovatskii and his significant contribution to the development of modern astrophysics. V. S. Beskin and V. L. Ginzburg provide some biographical details and insight into the life and work and publications of S. I. Syrovatskii. His key scientific interests included magnetohydrodynamics, radioastronomy, cosmic ray astrophysics and solar physics. Other chapters contributed to the review include: Supernova Ia; The formation and evolution of the current sheet for driven magnetic reconnection field lines on plasma; Dynamic current sheets in the Earth’s magnetotail; Syrovatskii and development of current sheet research.