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Since the turn of the 20-th century Brownian noise has continuously disclosed a rich variety of phenomena in and around physics. The understanding of this jittering motion of suspended microscopic particles has undoubtedly helped to reinforce and substantiate those pillars on which the basic modern physical theories are resting: Its formal description provided the key to great achievements in statistical mechanics, the foundations of quantum mechanics and also astrophysical phenomena, to name but a few. Recent progress of Brownian motion theory involves (i) the description of relativistic Brownian motion and its impact for relativistic thermodynamics, or (ii) its role for fluctuation theorems and symmetry relations that constitute the pivot of those recent developments for nonequilibrium thermodynamics beyond the linear response.
Although noise commonly is hold as the enemy of order, it in fact also can be of constructive influence. The phenomena of Stochastic Resonance and Brownian motors present two such archetypes wherein random Brownian dynamics together with unbiased nonequilibrium forces beneficially cooperate in enhancing detection and/or in facilitating directed transmission of information. The applications range from information processing devices in physics, chemistry, and physical biology to new hardware for medical rehabilitation. Particularly, additional non-equilibrium disturbances enable the rectification of haphazard Brownian noise so that quantum and classical objects can be directed along on a priori designed routes (i.e. Brownian motors. We conclude with an outlook of future prospects, trends and unsolved issues.
Home page and access to talks, publications: http://www.physik.uni-augsburg.de/theo1/hanggi/
Peter Hänggi is known for a series of original and pioneering contributions in the area of statistical physics and driven quantum mechanics. After his education at the University of Basel, (Ph.D Jan. 1977), and postdoc years at the Universities of Stuttgart, Germany, University of California, San Diego, USA, he was employed assistant professor and promoted to associated professor at the Polytechnic Institute of New York. In 1984 he obtained a call for full professor at an age of 34 at the University of Augsburg, where he built up a whole new physics department. Peter’s research is known worldwide for his seminal contributions to reaction rate theory, various novel phenomena in stochastic processes far from equilibrium, time-dependent driven quantum mechanics, quantum dissipation, quantum thermodynamics and, as well, for relativistic-Brownian motion and -thermodynamics. Among his best known achievements are the description of the phenomenon of Stochastic Resonance, his discovery of coherent destruction of tunneling and his initiation of the field of Brownian motors. Among his many international awards are the Lindhard lectureship prize, Lars Onsager medal, Blaise Pascal medal, M. von Smoluchowski-E. Warburg prize, etc.. He also has been awarded with 9 doctors honoris causa and 2 honorary professorships. His bibliographic data are: WOS h = 90 (# > 43000); Google scholar h = 102 (# > 57000).