Jan Philip Solovej (born 14 June 1961) is a Danish mathematician and mathematical physicist working on the mathematical theory of quantum mechanics. He is a professor at

University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen ( da, Københavns Universitet, KU) is a prestigious public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in ...

Biography

Solovej obtained his Ph.D. in 1989 from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

with the thesis on "Universality in the Thomas-Fermi-von Weizsäcker Model of Atoms and Molecules" supervised by Elliott H. Lieb. As a post-doctoral researcher, he went to the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

in 1989/90 and to the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

in 1990. In 1991 (and 2003/04) he was a member at the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent schola ...

. From 1991 to 1995, he was Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics at

. From 1995 to 1997, he was a research professor at the

University of Aarhus Aarhus University ( da, Aarhus Universitet, abbreviated AU) is a public research university with its main campus located in Aarhus, Denmark. It is the second largest and second oldest university in Denmark. The university is part of the Coimbra Gr ...

. Since 1997, he has been a professor in the Department of Mathematics at the

. Since 2016, he has been the Centre leader of VILLUM Centre of Excellence for the Mathematics of Quantum Theory (QMATH). He is President of

European Mathematical Society The European Mathematical Society (EMS) is a European organization dedicated to the development of mathematics in Europe. Its members are different mathematical societies in Europe, academic institutions and individual mathematicians. The current ...

during 2023-2026. He is Editor in Chief of Journal of Mathematical Physics (since 2019). He is married and has two children.

Recognition

In 2021, he received the Henri Poincaré Prize from the

International Association of Mathematical Physics The International Association of Mathematical Physics (IAMP) was founded in 1976 to promote research in mathematical physics. It brings together research mathematicians and theoretical physicists, including students. The association's ordinary memb ...

, "for outstanding contributions to the analysis of quantum many-body problems ranging from the electronic structure of large atoms to the Lee-Huang-Yang asymptotics of the ground state energy of dilute Bose gases". He was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 2022, an invited speaker at the

European Congress of Mathematics The European Congress of Mathematics (ECM) is the second largest international conference of the mathematics community, after the International Congresses of Mathematicians (ICM). The ECM are held every four years and are timed precisely betwe ...

in 1996 and 2004, and a plenary speaker at the

International Congress on Mathematical Physics The International Congress on Mathematical Physics (ICMP) is the largest research congress in mathematical physics. It is held every three years, on behalf of the International Association of Mathematical Physics (IAMP). Prizes The Henri Poin ...

in 1991, 2003 and 2021. Solovej is a member of the

Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters {{Infobox organization , name = The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters , full_name = , native_name = Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab , native_name_lang = , logo = Royal ...

(elected 2000) and of the

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters, Law, and Sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europea ...

(elected 2020). He was named a Fellow of the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

, in the 2022 class of fellows, "for contributions to the rigorous analysis of quantum systems, particularly many-body systems".

Works

Solovej deals with mathematical questions in atomic physics (large atoms and molecules in the Thomas-Fermi model and the Hartree-Fock method), solid-state physics (the Bose-Einstein condensate,

Bogoliubov transformation In theoretical physics, the Bogoliubov transformation, also known as the Bogoliubov–Valatin transformation, was independently developed in 1958 by Nikolay Bogolyubov and John George Valatin for finding solutions of BCS theory in a homogeneous ...

, quantum dot, Heisenberg model and others) and in many-body quantum mechanics (the stability of matter, the Lieb-Thirring inequality and others). He is co-author, together with Elliott H. Lieb,

Robert Seiringer Robert Seiringer (1 September 1976, Vöcklabruck) is an Austrian mathematical physicist. Life and work Seiringer studied physics at the University of Vienna, where in 1999 he acquired his diploma and in 2000 with Jakob Yngvason as thesis advi ...

, and

Jakob Yngvason Jakob Yngvason (born 23 November 1945) is an Icelandic/Austrian physicist and emeritus professor of mathematical physics at the University of Vienna. He has made important contributions to local quantum field theory, thermodynamics, and the quant ...

, of a monograph on the mathematics of the

Bose gas An ideal Bose gas is a quantum-mechanical phase of matter, analogous to a classical ideal gas. It is composed of bosons, which have an integer value of spin, and abide by Bose–Einstein statistics. The statistical mechanics of bosons were deve ...

. In 1995, with Elliott H. Lieb and Michael Loss, he proved the stability of matter in magnetic fields. In 2003, he established the ionization conjecture for atoms within the Hartree-Fock theory, namely the excess charge, the ionization energy and the radius of an atom are uniformly bounded independently of the nuclear charge. Related questions for many-body

Schrödinger equation The Schrödinger equation is a linear partial differential equation that governs the wave function of a quantum-mechanical system. It is a key result in quantum mechanics, and its discovery was a significant landmark in the development of th ...

remain open, which are Problems 9, 10, 11 of the

Simon problems In mathematics, the Simon problems (or Simon's problems) are a series of fifteen questions posed in the year 2000 by Barry Simon, an American mathematical physicist. Inspired by other collections of mathematical problems and open conjectures, such ...

on Schrödinger operators. In 2012, with Rupert L. Frank, Christian Hainzl and

, he derived the Ginzburg-Landau theory from the

BCS theory BCS theory or Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer theory (named after John Bardeen, Leon Cooper, and John Robert Schrieffer) is the first microscopic theory of superconductivity since Heike Kamerlingh Onnes's 1911 discovery. The theory describes sup ...

. In 2014, with Elliott H. Lieb, he proved Wehrl's conjecture on the mininimum entropy of quantum spin systems. In 2020, with Søren Fournais, he proved the Lee-Huang-Yang conjecture on the ground state energy of dilute Bose gases.

Selection of publications

* * * * * * * *

References

External links

* * 1961 births Academic staff of the University of Copenhagen Living people Princeton University alumni Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Presidents of the European Mathematical Society {{Denmark-scientist-stub