The use of statistical fluctuations as probes of the microscopic dynamics of hot and dense hadronic matter is reviewed. Critical fluctuations near the critical point of QCD matter are predicted to enhance fluctuations in pionic observables. Chemical fluctuations, especially those of locally conserved quantum numbers, such as electric charge and baryon number, can probe the nature of the carrier...

016405-1 We consider a two-dimensional itinerant antiferromagnet near a quantum-critical point. We show that, contrary to conventional wisdom, fermionic excitations in the ordered state are not the usual Fermi-liquid quasiparticles. Instead, down to very low frequencies, the fermionic self-energy varies as !2=3. This non-Fermi-liquid behavior originates in the coupling of fermions to the longit...

We describe some of the recent results obtained for models with absorbing states. First, we present the nonequilibrium absorbing-state Potts model and discuss some of the factors that might affect the critical behaviour of such models. In particular we show that in two dimensions the further neighbour interactions might split the voter critical point into two critical points. We also describe s...

We consider a functional being a difference of two differentiable convex functionals on a closed ball. Existence and multiplicity of critical points is investigated. Some applications are given.

The occurrence of liquid-vapor phase transition and the possible existence of a critical point in complex plasmas--systems that consist of charged micrograins in a neutralizing plasma background--is investigated theoretically. An analysis based on the consideration of the intergrain interaction potential suggests that under certain conditions systems near and at the critical point should be obs...

The critical behavior of electrolyte mixtures was studied using grand canonical Monte Carlo simulations. Mixtures consist of large multivalent macroions and small monovalent co- and counterions. The system can be viewed as a binary mixture of macroions (with their counterions) and salt (co- and counterion pair). The primitive model description was used, in which the ions are point charges with ...

generally, the evaluation and assessment critical condition of rill formation are useful for a better understanding of soil erosion processes. the inherence characteristics of soils, which have much dynamic variations on the hill-slopes and are affected by rill formation, are the soil critical shear stress and soil erodibility factors. this study aims to assess experimental rill incision thresh...

Critical slowing down of the relaxation of the order parameter has phenomenological consequences in early universe cosmology and in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions. We study the relaxation rate of long-wavelength fluctuations of the order parameter in an O(N) scalar theory near the critical point to model the non-equilibrium dynamics of critical fluctuations near the chiral phase transit...

A purpose of critical point theory is the counting of critical points of functions. Principal theorems in the subject state in precise terms that topological complexity of the underlying space is reflected in the existence and nature of critical points of any smooth real-valued function defined on the space. The initial development of critical point theory is peculiarly the work of one man, Mar...