Ivan Vakarchuk

By the decision of the Academic Council of the ICMP of the National Acad. Sci. of Ukraine of May 16 2011 the title of Doctor honoris causa was conferred on Ivan Vakarchuk (Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Ukraine) for the development of the microscopic theory of Bose liquid, statistical theory of disordered systems, mathematical methods of theoretical physics, stellar spectra theory and fundamental problems of quantum informatics as well as for his organizing activity in the field of university education in Lviv and in Ukraine and for his contribution into the establishment of the Institute for Condensed Matter Physics of the National Acad. Sci. of Ukraine.

Ivan Vakarchuk was born on March 6, 1947 in the village of Stari Bratushany of Jedynets’ district (now in Moldova). Upon graduating from the physics department of the Ivan Franko State University of Lviv he took up his PhD studies (1973) at the Department of statistical theory of condensed states at the Institute for Theoretical Physics and defended the PhD thesis (1974) under supervision of Ihor Yukhnovskii. After defending in 1980 the doctor thesis entitled “Microscopic theory of Bose-liquid” he becomes one of the youngest doctors of sciences (D.Sc.) in Ukraine and in the Soviet Union. At the same time, he becomes head of the quantum statistics department in the newly established Lviv Division “Statistical physics” of the Institute for Theoretical Physics of Acad. of Sci. of UkrSSR and becomes deputy-director of this Division (afterwards in 1990 on the base of Division the Institute for Condensed Matter Physics of NAS of Ukraine was established). Starting from 1984 Prof. Vakarchuk is the head of the Chair for theoretical physics of the Ivan Franko State University of Lviv and in the years 1990-2007 and from 2010 by now he is rector of the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. In years 2007-2010 Prof. Vakarchuk was Minister of education and science of Ukraine.

While the narrow specialization becomes one of representative features of the modern science, Prof. Vakarchuk is distinguished by the variety of scientific interests. These are physics of quantum liquids, theory of phase transitions and critical phenomena, physics of disordered systems, mathematical methods of theoretical physics, fundamental problems of quantum mechanics and quantum informatics, geophysics, general relativity and cosmology, theory of stellar spectra, philosophy of science. In each of these fields he proposed new original approaches to the study of different physical phenomena and processes. A variety of his scientific interests enables him to apply methods established for one class of phenomena to another class. Being at first glance quite unexpected, this application turns out to be very fruitful in solving numerous problems in physics. Another particular feature of his research is that usually he approaches the problem “from the first principles”, that is starting with the fundamental equations and then finalizing the results of the theory by numerical predictions.

Prof. Vakarchuk is the author of more than 300 papers, beneath them the textbooks “Lectures in general relativity” (1990), “Quantum mechanics” (1998, revised 2nd and 3rd editions in 2004, 2007), “Introduction to the many-body theory” (1999), “Theory of stellar spectra” (2003). In 2000 for his textbook “Quantum mechanics” he was awarded the State prize of Ukraine in science and technology. In 2004, for the series of papers “Spectral studies of stars and comets” and the textbook “Theory of stellar spectra”, he was awarded the M.P.Barabashov prize in astrophysics established by the National Acad. of Sci. of Ukraine. He is the founder and the editor-in-chief of journal “World of Physics” and Journal of Physical Studies. Due to his scientific, pedagogical, organizational and social activities Prof. Vakarchuk is well known far beyond the only scientific world. He is laureate of numerous honors and awards. In 2007 he got the highest national award Hero of Ukraine.