Abstract:
The enormous progress in the science driven modern technology has fundamentally transformed the human society, creating all kinds of comfort of the modern civilization. Science is now positioned to initiate a new ‘control age’, instead of being only able to ‘observe’ and ‘interpret’ the quantum world. The pressing needs of ‘post-Moore’ information era, the world-scale energy and environment crisis, as well as the human dream of establishing ‘dialogue’ between biological and non-biological matter call for the ability to control the matter, energy and information at the atomic, molecular, even the electronic level. The modern instrumentation allows for observing, manipulating single atoms/molecules, creation and detection of single electron charge/spin and single photon. The central issue is to understand and to control the mysterious emergent properties of the quantum matter. Several characteristic features of the emergent phenomena in correlated systems, like collective excitations, symmetry breaking and renormalization will be illustrated by examples from superconductivity and critical phenomena. The well-established paradigm in condensed matter physics—Landau Fermi-liquid theory plus symmetry breaking—is now facing new challenges. Efforts in exploring the new paradigm—geometrical-topological description and long-range quantum entanglements—will be briefly outlined.

Biosketch:
Prof. Lu Yu obtained his Diploma in Physics from Kharkov State University, former Soviet Union, in 1961. In the same year he joined the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). In 1979 he moved to the Institute of Theoretical Physics, CAS. During the period 1979-81 he was a visiting scholar at Harvard University and the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 1986 he was appointed a research physicist at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy, and later served as Head of the Condensed Matter Section. Shortly after returning to work full-time in China in 2002, he was appointed as the Director of the Interdisciplinary Center of Theoretical Studies, CAS. Now he is a Research Fellow of the Institute of Physics, CAS.
His work has been rewarded with many prizes and distinctions, including Science and Technology Progress Award of CAS by the first prize in 1987, Natural Science Award of CAS by the first prize in 1999, National Natural Science Award by the second prize in 2000, ISI Citation Classic Award in 2000, National Science and Technology Progress Award by the second prize in 2007. He was elected Fellow of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS) in 1990, Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1999, and Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2005, and received the 2007 American Physical Society (AIP) John T Tate Physics International Leadership Award.