Workshop on Criticality, Dynamics, and Nonequilibrium Behavior in Quantum Systems

Évora, Portugal, 2-6 October 2023

The workshop is dedicated to the memory of Dionys Baeriswyl, co-organizer of many previous workshops held in Évora, and to the memory of Jaime Santos, a member of the local committee of the 2012 workshop and participant of other Évora workshops.

Zoom link of the In Memoriam Session on 2 October at 16:45:

https://videoconf-colibri.zoom.us/j/92067541700?pwd=RzNnU1pEZjF2aWtBL3BvZzBaSUhkQT09

Meeting ID: 920 6754 1700 Password: 080066

In Memoriam - Dionys Baeriswyl

Dionys Baeriswyl, a world-renowned condensed matter theorist and a fixture of these Evora meetings for three decades, passed away on August 9, 2023 after a courageous battle with cancer.

Dionys was known primarily for his contributions to the theory of strongly correlated electron systems. In particular, he conducted fundamental work on conjugated polymers and other quasi-one-dimensional electronic systems, emphasizing early on the importance of electronic correlations in these systems. In addition, Dionys was celebrated for his work on variational wave function approaches to one- and two-dimensional correlated electron systems, applying them to the Peierls and the Mott transitions as well as to superconductivity in high-Tc cuprates. In the course of this work, Dionys introduced the variational wave function now known as the “Baeriswyl wave function,” which can be viewed as the strong-coupling complement to the Gutzwiller wavefunction. While the Gutzwiller wavefunction incorporates correlation effects into the free-electron state, the Baeriswyl wavefunction incorporates itinerant electron movement into a localized, strongly correlated insulating state.

In addition to his organizational and scientific contributions to the Evora meetings, Dionys organized and contributed scientifically to numerous other international meetings, with the dual goals of bringing together outstanding physicists from around the world and of contributing significantly to the scientific education of young researchers. Notable examples of this included international meetings at Gwatt (Switzerland), at the Institute for Scientific Interchange (ISI) in Torino (Italy) and at the International Institute of Physics (IIP) in Natal (Brazil). Dionys also played a leading role in the University of Fribourg (Switzerland), where he served as head of the Institute of Theoretical Physics, as Dean of the Faculty of Science, and as President of the Department of Physics. Beyond all this, Dionys was also a concert-level pianist.

In all these roles, Dionys’ open, friendly, and generous approach to physics and to life attracted many friends from around the globe, and their lives were all enriched by his presence. He will be sorely missed.

In Memoriam - Jaime Santos

Jaime Eduardo Vieira Silva Moutinho Santos - Jaime to his many friends - passed away suddenly on July 14, 2023. Jaime was born in April 1971, in Porto, Portugal, and had a distinguished academic career. He graduated in Physics from the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Porto and went on to a PhD in Theoretical Physics, in the field of Statistical Physics, at the University of Oxford, which was followed by post-doctoral studies in Germany.

Jaime dedicated most of his life to scientific research and, more recently, to university teaching. After several temporary posts at academic and industrial institutions, he worked at the University of Minho since 2011. His research horizons were broad, with published works ranging from Statistical Physics and Quantum Field Theory and, in recent years, to the Quantum Theory of Low-Dimensional Materials. With his deep knowledge of Quantum Mechanics and Statistics, Jaime made a major contribution to teaching Quantum Physics I and II, Complements of Quantum Mechanics, and Physical Platforms for Quantum Computing, always with dedication and care for logic and clarity of his exposition, Jaime had special and endearing human characteristics.

He was a devoted friend, with a constant concern for those in need, strong with the strong, and with an informed opinion on the most diverse social problems, all backed up by an encyclopedic knowledge. With his intelligent sense of humor, he made all those he met feel at ease.

Jaime was also a remarkably clear-sighted person, with a good understanding of his role in the world and, because of this, a modest and self-effacing person. Jaime passed away much earlier than he should have and left in the memory of those who knew him the mark of a clever, confident, good, and fair person.