Diffuse waves in complex media : [proceedings of the NATO advanced study institute on diffuse waves in complex media, Les Houches, France, March 17-27, 1998

The NATO Advanced Study Institute on Diffuse Waves in Complex Media was held at the "Centre de Physique des Houches" in France from March 17 to 27, 1998. The Schools' scientific content, wave propagation in heterogeneous me­ dia, has covered many areas of fundamental and applied research. On the one hand, the understanding of wave propagation has considerably improved during the last thirty years. New developments and concepts such as, speckle correlations, weak and strong localization, time reversal, near-field propagation are under active research. On the other hand, wave propagation in random media is now being investigated in many different fields such as applied mathematics, acoustics, optics, atomic physics, geo­ physics or medical sciences. Each community often uses its own langage to describe the same phenomena. The aim of the School was to gather worldwide specialists to illuminate various aspects of wave propagation in random media. This volume presents fourteen expository articles corresponding to courses and seminars given during the School. They are arranged as follows. The first three articles deal with the phenomena of localization of waves: B. van Tiggelen (p. 1) gives a critical review of the physics of localization, J. Lacroix (p. 61) presents the mathematical theory and A. Klein (p. 73) describes recent results for randomized periodic media. Front Matter....Pages i-xi Localization of Waves....Pages 1-60 Mathematical Theory of Localization....Pages 61-71 Localization of Light in Randomized Periodic Media....Pages 73-92 Photonic Band Gap Materials....Pages 93-107 High-Contrast Photonic Crystals....Pages 109-136 Photon Statistics of a Random Laser....Pages 137-164 Spectra of Large Random Matrices: A Method of Study....Pages 165-211 Optics of Ordered and Disordered Atomic Media....Pages 213-247 Cold Atoms and Multiple Scattering....Pages 249-288 Wave Scattering from Rough Surfaces....Pages 289-317 Acoustic Pulses Propagating in Randomly Layered Media....Pages 319-345 Reflection and Transmission of Acoustic Waves by a Locally-Layered Random Slab....Pages 347-381 Seismic Wave Diffusion in the Earth Lithosphere....Pages 383-404 Imaging and Averaging in Complex Media....Pages 405-454 Back Matter....Pages 455-459

There is a great deal of current research into wave propagation in random media, in such fields as applied mathematics, acoustics, optics, materials science, atomic physics and geophysics. This book provides accurate theoretical and practical introductions at research level to topics such as: localization of waves, band gap materials, random matrices, dielectric media, laser cooled atoms, wave scattering from rough surfaces, randomly layered media, seismic waves and imaging the earth.