Statistical Physics of Spin Glasses and Information Processing An Introduction

• Main Author: Nishimori, Hidetoshi (auth)
• Format: Electronic Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Oxford University Press 2001
• Series: International Series of Monographs on Physics
• Subjects: Condensed matter physics (liquid state & solid state physics); Neural networks & fuzzy systems; Applied mathematics; Optimization; Image processing; Thermodynamics & heat; Statistical physics; spin glass, information theory, error-correcting codes, statistical mechanics, replica method, image restoration, neural networks
• Online Access: OAPEN Library: download the publication; OAPEN Library: description of the publication

Spin glasses are magnetic materials with strong disorder. Statistical mechanics has been a powerful tool to theoretically analyse various unique properties of spin glasses. A number of new analytical techniques have been developed to establish a theory of spin glasses. Surprisingly, these techniques have offered new tools and viewpoints for the understanding of information processing problems, including neural networks, error-correcting codes, image restoration, and optimization problems. A vast, interdisciplinary field has consequently been developing between physics and information, or more specifically, between the statistical physics of spin glasses and several important aspects of information processing tasks. This book provides a broad overview of this new field. It also contains detailed descriptions of the theory of spin glasses.