In the past three decades there has been enormous progress
in identifying the essential role that nonlinearity plays
in physical systems, including supporting soliton-like
solutions and self-trapped sxcitations such as polarons.
during the same period, similarly impressive progress has
occurred in understanding the effects of disorder in linear
quantum problems, especially regarding Anderson localization
arising from impurities, random spatial structures,
stochastic applied fields, and so forth.
These striking consequences of disorder, noise and
nonlinearity frequently occur together in physical systems.
Yet there have been only limited attempts to develop
systematic techniques which can include all of these
ingredients, which may reinforce, complement or frustrate
each other. This book contains a range of articles which
provide important steps toward the goal of systematic
understanding and classification of phenomenology.
Experts from Australia, Europe, Japan, USA, and the USSR
describe both mathematical and numerical techniques -
especially from soliton and statistical physics disciplines
- and applicaations to a number of important physical
systems and devices, including optical and electronic
transmission lines, liquid crystals, biophysics and
magnetism.