Lev Shchur

Scientists at the HSE Laboratory for Computational Physics have developed a new model for analysing communication networks that can significantly enhance the speed of mobile communications. To achieve this, the researchers used computational physics methods and phase transition models. It turns out that the functioning of cellular networks is in many ways similar to the growth of surfaces in physics. The study was performed using the HPC cHARISMa cluster at HSE University. The study findings have been published in Frontiers in Physics.

Professor Lev Shchur has received the Henri Abraham Award 2022 for his services in organising science, including conducting international conferences and supporting early-career scientists. The award was established by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) in 2020, and has since been given to six researchers from various countries.

Students and researchers from HSE University and the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics have examined the widely known ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma’ game using methods from statistical physics. They used the mean-field concept, a common tool for studying the physics of many-particle systems, to describe human decision-making processes. Researchers suggest that this model may be helpful for understanding systems with many participants. The results of the study are published in the September issue of the Physics Review Research journal.

A team of researchers of HSE University’s Tikhonov Moscow Institute of Electronics and Mathematics (Professor Lev Shchur, Assistant Professor Evgeny Burovsky, and doctoral student Maria Guskova), in collaboration with Prof. Wolfhard Janke (Leipzig University, Germany), has made a new discovery about the properties of classical Monte Carlo (MC) algorithms. The team identified an interesting connection between the properties of the algorithm used and the properties of statistical systems that are modeled using the algorithm. As it turns out, the acceptance rate in local Metropolis and heat-bath algorithms appear to be a linear function of internal energy of the used model. Moreover, the researchers were able to prove analytically that, for a one-dimensional (1D) Ising model, the acceptance rate of the Metropolis algorithm is a linear function of internal energy. This proved true not only for the thermodynamic limit, but for an arbitrary size of the system under study as well. A computational experiment demonstrated that, for all analyzed spin models with different types of interaction in any space dimensions, the linearity is performed around the phase transition point.

A new supercomputer, which has been recently set up at MIEM, will allow the university to carry out high quality research in deep learning and mathematical modeling. The computer was ranked sixth in the April Top-50 ranking of supercomputers in Russia.

Professor Lev Shchur, Academic Supervisor of the master's programme in Supercomputer Simulations in Science and Engineering, and Professor Hai-Qing Lin, Director of Beijing Computational Science Research Center (CSRC)  have signed a cooperation agreement for implementing a joint research project in computational physics and high performance computing.

This year, the new Master's programme ‘Supercomputer Simulations in Science and Engineering’ will be launched at MIEM HSE. Graduates will be experts in the interdisciplinary field of computer technology, natural sciences and engineering sciences.

The American Physical Society (APS) has recognised HSE MIEM Professor Lev Shchur for his innovative use of computer simulations and the development of superior random number generators for their use in statistical physics. Professor Shchur is the only academic working in Russia to be selected as APS Fellow in 2017.

On October 9-12, 2017 HSE holds the Second International Conference on Computer Simulation in Physics and beyond. Lev Shchur, the conference organizer, Professor at HSE Tikhonov Moscow Institute of Electronics and Mathematics (MIEM HSE), spoke about the event and its programme.