Heidelberg Colloquium on Glassy Dynamics [electronic resource] : Proceedings of a Colloquium on Spin Glasses, Optimization and Neural Networks Held at the University of Heidelberg June 9–13, 1986 / edited by J. L. van Hemmen, I. Morgenstern.

Disorder, frustration and metastability: The development of a new era -- Recent experiments on spin glasses: An overview -- Experiments on relaxation in metallic spin glasses -- Magnons in spin-glasses in zero-field and in high magnetic fields: Experiments and theory -- Search for phase transition in the spin glass Eu0.4Sr0.6S by dynamic susceptibility measurements -- Dynamics across the transition line in the insulating spin-glass Eu(0.4)Sr(0.6)S -- Critical static and dynamic measurements of the magnetization of an insulating spinglass – Fractal model interpretation -- Non-exponential decay of polarization in electric dipole glasses -- Low temperature experiments on glasses -- Scaling theory of the ordered phase of spin glasses -- Dynamics of the formation of ordered domains out of initially disordered configurations -- Phase transitions and equilibrium dynamics in strongly random Ising spin systems -- Numerical studies of spin glasses -- On replica symmetric Ising spin glasses -- Some remarks on ultrametricity -- On the dynamic solution of the SK-model: Evidence against ultrametricity and all that -- Diffusion in ultrametric spaces -- Relaxation in complex systems -- A pedestrian review of the theory and application of the simulated annealing algorithm -- Monte Carlo and mean field slow cooling simulations for spin glasses: relation to NP-completeness -- Calculating exact ground states of spin glasses: A polyhedral approach -- Spin glasses and optimization -- Engineering applications of spin glass concepts -- Spin-glasses, optimization and neural networks -- The properties of models of simple neural networks -- The theory of neural networks: The Hebb rule and beyond -- Neural networks with asymmetric bonds -- Irreversible spin glasses and neural networks -- Nonlinear neural networks: Efficient storage and retrieval of information -- Short-term memory.

This book contains most of the invited contributions to the Heidelberg Colloquium on Glassy Dynamics, held in June 1986 and covering the three topics: spin glasses, optimization and neural networks. It includes experimental papers on spin glasses and glasses as well as theoretical work on the spin-glass transition, the description of the spin-glass phase, and slow relaxation phenomena. New techniques for solving combinatorial optimization problems are presented with particular emphasis placed on simulated annealing. Finally, a comprehensive review of the statistical mechanics of neural networks is given. The thorough and partly review-like treatment of the various topics makes this book indispensable reading for researchers and graduate students in physics, biophysics and optimization with special interest in magnetic systems, glasses and brain research, repectively. N.