Nobel prize winner Alex Abrikosov: Unusual life and scientific achievements by Prof Andrey Varlamov

Nobel prize winner Alex Abrikosov: Unusual life and scientific achievements
Professor Andrey Varlamov
Hosted by IOP West Midlands, Wolverhampton Centre

Alexey Abrikosov, a recipient of the 2003 Nobel prize for Physics "for pioneering contributions to the theory of superconductors and superfluids", was one of the greatest theorists of Condensed Matter physics. A student of the legendary Lev Landau—whose equations written in collaboration with Vitaly Ginzburg are a pillar of the theory of superconductivity—he explained how magnetic fields may have to extend their fight with superconductivity (known as the Meissner effect) by piercing through the supercurrent with a lattice of quantum vortices. He did so by finding a beautiful and sophisticated solution to the Ginzburg-Landau equations, whose imaging in actual experiments provides one of the most stunning views of the quantum world. In this opening Lecture, one of Abrikosov's students, Prof. Andrey Varlamov (left on the picture), a well-known expert in superconductivity, will present not only the Science, but also the life of this contemporary genius, who was able to see farther than Landau himself.

Speaker biography
Andrey A. Varlamov (born 25 April 1954) is an Italian physicist of Ukrainian origin. He is a principal investigator at the Institute of Superconductors, Oxides and Other Innovative Materials and Devices (SPIN-CNR) in Rome, Italy. He did his PhD at the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys under the supervision of A. A. Abrikosov, and received his Ph.D. in condensed matter physics in 1980 and became full professor there in 1990. In 1993 he became an invited fellow at the Condensed Matter Theory Group of Argonne National Laboratory in the United States and from 1996, to this day, he worked at the University of Rome Tor Vergata where he is now an adjunct professor. Since 1999, he works as a research director at the Institute of Superconductors, Oxides and other Innovative Materials and Devices of the Italian National Research Council (SPIN-CNR). He has a special interest in extraneous topics of Physics, being in particular member of the Editorial Board of the popular scientific journal for students Kvant of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Well known for his books on the physics of cooking, he is renowned for what became known as the Perfect Pizza equation.