Jurij Kozicki

By the decision of the Academic Council of the Yukhnovskii Institute for Condensed Matter Physics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine of May 29, 2025 the title of Doctor honoris causa was conferred on Professor Jurij Kozicki (Marie Curie-Skłodowska University, Lublin, Poland) for outstanding achievements in the development of mathematical foundations of theoretical approaches in condensed matter physics, contribution to the formation of the Lviv school of statistical physics, and close cooperation with the Yukhnovskii Institute for Condensed Matter Physics.

Jurij Kozicki (aka Yuri Kozitsky) was born in Krukiv (now a part of Kremenchuk, Poltava Region, Ukraine), on 21 April 1949. In 1967, he enrolled at the Department of Physics of Ivan Franko Lviv State University which he graduated in 1972. In 1976, Jurij Kozicki started his PhD studies at the Lviv Department of Statistical Theory of Condensed States (STECS) of the Institute for Theoretical Physics of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Under supervisorship of Prof. Ihor Yukhnovskii, in 1981 he defended the Ph.D. thesis entitled ”Application of the Method of Collective Variables to the Study of Scalar Models of Phase Transitions”. In 1982 he joined the Chair of Higher Mathematics at the Lviv Institute of Trade and Economics (now Lviv University of Trade and Economics). Two years later, he took the position of the head of this chair, and held it for 12 years. In 1992, Kozicki received a Doctor of Science degree in mathematics (mathematical analysis) by defending the thesis entitled ”Laguerre Entire Functions in Problems of Mathematical Physics” at the Institute of Mathematics of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. The year 1994 he was granted a professorship in mathematics and since 1996 and until now, Jurij Kozicki holds the full professor position at the Institute of Mathematics of Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, Poland, alongside with a number of administrative appointments.

Prof. Kozicki’s fields of activities include mathematical aspects of quantum theory, Gibbs states and phase transitions, Laguerre entire functions, holomorphic maps in infinite dimensional Banach spaces, the stochastic evolution of infinite populations with applications in life sciences, such as modelling of cancer progression. Under the supervision of Prof. Ihor Yukhnovskii, he elaborated a more general version of Yukhnovskii’s layer-by-layer integration method that opened up new possibilities for constructing hierarchical models starting from those based on translation invariant lattices. By employing Laguerre entire functions, Prof. Kozicki proved limit theorems describing critical points in vector hierarchical models that provided a rigorous verification of the appearance of self-similarity in second-order phase transitions. In collaboration with the group of mathematical physicists known as BiBoS, Bielefeld University, Germany, he elaborated in the years 1995 – 2009 rigorous path integration techniques and methods of their application in the theory of Gibbs states of quantum lattice models. In the framework of this approach, such effects as quantum stabilization and phase transitions in the mentioned models were described in full detail. The results in this direction were summarized in a monography he coauthored with Sergio Albeverio, Yuri Kondratiev and Michael Roeckner, entitled The Statistical Mechanics of Quantum Lattice Systems: A Path Integral Approach, Tracts in Mathematics 8, European Mathematical Society, Zurich. 2009. His collaboration with the ICMP includes such topics as a rigorous theory of phase transitions in continuous media and on random graphs, analytic and numerical approaches to spreading and population dynamics, analysis of correspondence between the Newtonian description of many-particle systems and the hydrodynamic description of a continuous medium.

Prof. Kozicki supervised 10 PhD works. He coordinated numerous research projects supported by International Science Foundation (USA), DAAD, DFG, (Germany) KBN (Poland). In the years 2013—17, he headed a Maria Curie Action Research Project STREVCOMS, which was carried out by 10 research institutions worldwide, including ICMP and Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. He held temporal research and lecturing positions in various countries, including Bielefeld University, Bonn University and Ruhr University Bochum (Germany), University of Rome “La Sapienza”, University of Rome “Tor Vergata” (Italy), University of Bucharest and Simeon Stoilov Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy (Romania), ORT Braude College, Karmiel (Israel). Especially strong relations join him with the Yukhnovskii Institute for Condensed Matter Physics in Lviv. He was one of the first disciples of Prof. Ihor Yukhnovskii in the field of phase transition theory in then the STECS department, which gave origin to the ICMP. Thanks to his initiative and support, a number of scientists from ICMP were able to do internships at the Marie Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, to carry out research within the framework of international cooperation projects. Prof. Jurij Kozicki is a member of the editorial board of the Condensed Matter Physics journal, a member of the Advisory Board of the ICMP, a regular participant and co-organizer of conferences held by our institute.