Abstract
In the past two decades, a series of international conferences on Statistical Physics, going by the name Statphys Kolkata, have been organized in Kolkata (previously Calcutta) at roughly three-year intervals, the first one being held in 1992–93. The seventh of this series, Statphys Kolkata VII (http://www.saha.ac.in/cmp/stat.vii/index.php) was held from 26–30 November 2010. This meeting was organized as part of the Silver Jubilee Celebration of the Satyendra Nath Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences, Kolkata, in collaboration with the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata.
In Statphys Kolkata VII, a few topics of current interest such as Collective behavior and emergent phenomena, Systems far from equilibrium, Soft matter, and Quantum critical phenomena were given special emphasis, while various other issues of Statistical Physics were also addressed. We were happy to note that the conference attracted a large number of participants, and the talk and poster sessions generated a lot of discussions, arguments and collaborations. The articles appearing in this proceedings are based on the invited talks and selected poster presentations.
We would like to thank the Journal of Physics Conference Series, IOP, for publishing the proceedings of the conference, and the referees for their prompt and active support.
The proceedings of the earlier Statphys Kolkata conferences have appeared in Physica A, vol 384 (2007); Physica A, vol 346 (2005); Physica A, vol 318 (2003); Physica A, vol 270 (1999); Physica A, vol 224 (1996); and Physica A, vol 186 (1992).
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the members of the organizing committee (especially Dr Anjan Kumar Chandra for extensive all-round help), and acknowledge the Centre for Applied Mathematics and Computational Science (CAMCS, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata) and Satyendra Nath Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences, Kolkata, for their financial support.
Jayanta Kumar Bhattacharjee, Bikas K Chakrabarti, Jun-Ichi Inoue and Parongama Sen Convenors and Editors of the proceedings