Foreword

Phase transitions and critical phenomena: universality and non-universal features

This special issue of the CMP is devoted to phase transitions and critical phenomena. Several recent decades of intensive, sometimes even frantic, and fruitful activities might produce an impression that all principal work in this field has already been completed and nothing really new can be found. Of course, this is far from being true, and the aim of the present issue is to give an evidence that the field is still fertile and thankful to those who work hard on it. We hope that the readers will find this evidence in the presented papers for which we cordially thank their authors who share this aim of ours and our devotion to the subject.

A specially pleasant mission of this issue is to pay tribute to our distinguished colleague and friend Mykhailo Kozlovskii, member of the CMP Editorial Board, who has been working in the theory of phase transitions for nearly 40 years. In August 2012, Mykhailo crossed a magic line of time, called a sixty years jubilee, and thus reached the age of maturity and wisdom. With this regard, we wish him good health and many years of fruitful and joyful life among his favorite collective variables, fishing, invariably beloved family, and faithful friends. We also wish him to open new horizons and to explore further bystreets in statistical physics, to meet new friends, colleagues and followers.

Condensed Matter Physics, 2013, vol. 16, No. 2, 20101:1-2

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Yu. Kozitsky

On thermodynamic states of the Ising model on scale-free graphs

V.I. Yukalov

Self-consistent approach for Bose-condensed atoms in optical lattices

C. Bervillier

The Wilson exact renormalization group equation and the anomalous dimension parameter

Yu. Slyusarenko, A. Kruchkov

Mechanism of collisionless sound damping in dilute Bose gas with condensate

I.V. Stasyuk, O. Vorobyov

Energy spectrum and phase diagrams of two-sublattice hard-core boson model

V.E. Chechko, V.Ya. Gotsulsky, M.P. Malomuzh

Peculiar points in the phase diagram of the water-alcohol solutions

I.V. Pylyuk

Order parameter of a three-dimensional Ising-like system in the simplest and higher non-Gaussian approximations

A.V. Chalyi, L.A. Bulavin, V.F. Chekhun, K.A. Chalyy, L.M. Chernenko, A.M. Vasilev, E.V. Zaitseva, G.V. Khrapijchyk, A.V. Siverin, M.V. Kovalenko

Universality classes and critical phenomena in confined liquid systems

R. Kenna, B. Berche

A new critical exponent 'coppa' and its logarithmic counterpart 'hat coppa'

M. Krasnytska, B. Berche, Yu. Holovatch

Phase transitions in the Potts model on complex networks

M.A. Anisimov

Universality versus nonuniversality in asymmetric fluid criticality

I.R. Yukhnovskii, V.O. Kolomiets, I.M. Idzyk

Liquid gas phase transition at and below the critical point

T. Nagai, Y. Okamoto, W. Janke

Crossover scaling in the two-dimensional three-state Potts model

D. Blackmore, A. Prykarpatsky

A new exactly solvable spatially one-dimensional quantum superradiance fermi-medium model and properties of its quantum solitonic states

N. Bogolubov, A. Prykarpatsky

A current algebra approach to the equilibrium classical statistical mechanics and its applications

M.A. Korynevskii, V.B. Solovyan

Ferroelectric order parameter in the two-particle cluster system near phase transition point: collective variables method

Personalia

Taras Krokhmalskii's 60th birthday

Taras Krokhmalskii, a senior research fellow of the Institute for Condensed Matter Physics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (ICMP), a renowned specialist in the field of condensed matter physics celebrated his sixtieth birthday on February 6, 2013.

The editorial board of the "Condensed Matter Physics" joins numerous congratulations to him and wish him to stay in good health, implement his creative ideas, gain new achievements in science, and - last but not least - in his own peculiar way to grasp the Nature and tell us the tale.

Condensed Matter Physics, 2013, vol. 16, No. 2, 27001:1-2
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Personalia

Bertrand Berche's 50th birthday

A story from scientific folklore mentions two principal types of scientists. Scientists of the first type follow a ballistic approach in their research: they go far in a chosen direction, but the area they cover is negligibly small. Scientists of the second type follow a diffusive approach: they try to look in different directions covering a broad area but they go nowhere. Fortunately, such categorizations have exceptions. Indeed, amongst our colleagues there are those who manage to go far in their studies, searching answers to different puzzles put by nature, no matter to which specific sub-field of physics these puzzles are traditionally attributed. Bertrand Berche, who this year celebrates his first jubilee is one of them. Statistical physics, conformal field theory, gauge fields in condensed matter physics, cosmology, complex networks, sociophysics, history and philosophy of physics, these are the fields in which he works.

At this point on behalf of his friends, colleagues and the community at large, it is appropriate to celebrate Bertrand Berche’s jubilee and to wish him continued success on his way.

Condensed Matter Physics, 2013, vol. 16, No. 2, 27002:1-2
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