The series Lecture Notes in Physics (LNP), founded in 1969, reports new developments in physics research and teaching quickly and informally, but with a high quality and the explicit aim to summarize and communicate current knowledge in an accessible way. Books published in this series are conceived as bridging material between advanced graduate textbooks and the forefront of research and to serve three purposes:
• to be a compact and modern up-to-date source of reference on a well-defined topic • to serve as an accessible introduction to the field to postgraduate students and
nonspecialist researchers from related areas • to be a source of advanced teaching material for specialized seminars, courses and
schools