Boris Vladimirovich Svistunov (; born October 22, 1959) is a Russian-American physicist specialised in the

condensed matter physics Condensed matter physics is the field of physics that deals with the macroscopic and microscopic physical properties of matter, especially the solid and liquid State of matter, phases, that arise from electromagnetic forces between atoms and elec ...

. He received his MSc in physics in 1983 from Moscow Engineering Physics Institute, Moscow. In 1990, he received his

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in theoretical physics from Kurchatov Institute (Moscow), where he worked from 1986 to 2003 (and is still affiliated with). In 2003, he joined the Physics Department of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he is currently full professor. He is currently also an affiliated faculty member of Wilczek Quantum Center in

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

at SJTU and is a participant of Simons collaboration on many electron systems. Boris Svistunov is recognised for his works on superfluidity, supersolidity, superfluid turbulence, strongly correlated systems and pioneering numerical approaches. With his collaborators and students he made important contributions to superfluid turbulence (reviewed in), theory of supersolids, in collaboration with Nikolay Prokof'ev including the theory of superfluidity of crystalline defects (reviewed in) and

superglass A superglass is a phase of matter which is characterized by superfluidity and a frozen amorphous structure at the same time. J.C. Séamus Davis theorised that frozen helium-4 Helium-4 () is a stable isotope of the element helium. It is by far ...

phase. He is a co-inventor, with Nikolay Prokof'ev and Igor Tupitsyn of the widely used Worm Monte-Carlo algorithm. With Nikolay Prokof'ev he invented Diagrammatic Monte-Carlo method which is stochastic summation of Feynman diagrammatic series. Because the method is free from the

Numerical sign problem In applied mathematics, the numerical sign problem is the problem of numerically evaluating the integral of a highly oscillatory function of a large number of variables. Numerical methods fail because of the near-cancellation of the positive and n ...

it allowed to solve previously untreatable fermionic problems. He is elected Fellow of the American Physical Society for his highly influential works in superfluidity and supersolidity. His research was recognised by his election as Fellow of the American Physical Society. The citation associated with of his Fellow election in the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of ...

, for "pioneering contributions to the theory and practice of Monte Carlo simulations for strongly correlated quantum and classical systems, the invention of the worm algorithm and diagrammatic Monte Carlo techniques, and fundamental theoretical results on superfluid phenomena in quantum gases, liquids, and solids." He is Outstanding Referee for American Physical Society and Distinguished Referee for Europhysics letters. He co-authored the book on modern theory of Superfluidity

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Svistunov, Boris Fellows of the American Physical Society American physicists Living people 1959 births Moscow Engineering Physics Institute alumni