The foundations for the statistical approach to thermodynamics were laid by the likes of Boltzmann, Gibbs, and Maxwell in the 19th century. With the advent of quantum mechanics, in the beginning of the 20th century, theorists were forced to re-examine the issue under a new light. As a result, new terms such as decoherence and entanglement were introduced in the literature in order to make these foundations self-consistent. In this Colloquium, this fundamental topic is reviewed under the developments of the last decade, including the new field of nanoscience.

This article surveys the behavior of perturbations of black holes. These perturbations play a role in the study of astrophysical effects of black holes and more recently have come to prominence in the study of quantum gravity and higher-dimensional models of particle physics. One of the central applications arises in gauge-gravity duality where quasinormal modes of black holes can be used to model the quark-gluon plasma of QCD in the nonperturbative regime.

The 2010 Nobel Prize for Physics was shared by Andre K. Geim and K. S. Novoselov. These papers are the text of the address given in conjunction with the award.

The 2010 Nobel Prize for Physics was shared by Andre K. Geim and K. S. Novoselov. These papers are the text of the address given in conjunction with the award.

This Colloquium gives an overview of recent developments in the field of nonequilibrium dynamics of closed interacting quantum systems. It covers both the nonadiabatic response to slow changes of system parameters (in particular, the quantum Kibble-Zurek mechanism) and quantum quenches, i.e., the dynamical evolution following a rapid change of a system parameter. It also discusses recent experimental developments in observing quantum dynamics with emphasis on cold atoms.

Classical plasmas are highly correlated systems where interacting charged particles produce a series of nonlinear excitations. When the temperature of the plasma is below their Fermi energy, it becomes degenerate and responds quantum mechanically. In this Colloquium, the structure of such plasmas is reviewed and how this kind of behavior can impact fusion is discussed.

The discovery of cosmic rays - charged particles that originate outside the solar system - was made almost 100 years ago. Today the cosmic ray energy spectrum is known to extend more than 14 orders of magnitude, from ${10}^{(6)}$ to above ${10}^{(20)}\mathrm{eV}$. Nevertheless, after decades of research the physics behind several important features of these particles is still not understood. This is in particular so for ultrahigh energy cosmic rays with particles exceeding ${10}^{(18)}\mathrm{eV}$ investigated recently in the High Resolution Fly’s Eye and the Southern Auger Observatory experiments. This review focusses on these experiment results and discusses the measured energy spectrum, the chemical composition, and the searches for the astrophysical (galactic and extragalactic) sources of the ultrahigh energy cosmic rays.

Experiments in physics are generally affected by a never perfect measuring apparatus and by a limited time in which a measurement is performed. On the other hand, the existence of additional information about the experiment and underlying physics remains frequently neglected. This review discusses Bayesian inference, a probability theoretical approach for data analysis, to extract the best from both data and meta information. Starting from an introduction into the Bayesian concept of probability the article summarizes case studies for Bayesian analysis and illustrates them with physical examples from cosmology, mass spectroscopy, plasma physics, and surface science.

The first gamma-ray line ever detected from outside the Solar System witnesses electron-positron annihilation in the Galaxy. Its true origin is still not understood but after 30 years of research, gamma-ray observatories revealed a strong concentration of the emission towards the galactic bulge with a bulge-to-disk luminosity ratio larger than at any other wavelength. For an identification of the astrophysical sources and their particular distribution, however, it is essential to understand first the propagation of low energy positrons in a turbulent, magnetized interstellar medium. The candidates for positron sources and the mechanisms for positron propagation in the Galaxy are critically discussed.