The problem of turbulence and coherent structures is of key importance in
many fields of science and engineering. It is an area which is vigorously
researched across a diverse range of disciplines such as theoretical physics,
oceanography, atmospheric science, magnetically confined plasma, nonlinear
optics, etc. Modern studies in turbulence and coherent structures are
based on a variety of theoretical concepts, numerical simulation techniques
and experimental methods, which cannot be reviewed effectively by a single
expert. The main goal of these lecture notes is to introduce state-of-theart
turbulence research in a variety of approaches (theoretical, numerical
simulations and experiments) and applications (fluids, plasmas, geophysics,
nonlinear optical media) by several experts.
This book is based on the lectures delivered at the 19th Canberra International
Physics Summer School held at the Australian National University
in Canberra (Australia) from 16-20 January 2006. The Summer School was
sponsored by the Australian Research Council's Complex Open Systems
Research Network (COSNet).