In memoriam of Berislav Buča

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Berislav Buča, who died during the night of 12–13 September 2026, after a courageous struggle with cancer.

Berislav was a theoretical physicist whose work had a profound influence on the study of open and nonequilibrium quantum systems. His pioneering results to weak and strong symmetries, dynamical symmetries and dissipative time crystals have shaped research across quantum physics, condensed matter, atomic physics and quantum information.

He completed his PhD in Ljubljana and pursued his scientific career through positions in Oxford and Copenhagen before joining LPTMS as a Chair Professor Junior (CPJ). He remained with us until August 2026, when he took up a position as Distinguished Professor at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

Even while seriously ill, Berislav continued to produce important scientific work and, in 2025, was awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant for his research project.

During his time with us, his love of life and of physics was an inspiration to everyone at LPTMS. His wit and energy will remain with us.

The whole LPTMS community extends its heartfelt sympathy to his family, to Vendi, who was always by his side, and to their beloved Pulci.

P.S. Those who wish to share a message or their memories of Berislav may write to secretariat.lptms[a]universite-paris-saclay.fr. We will forward all messages to Vendi.

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About

The Laboratory of Theoretical Physics and Statistical Models (LPTMS) is a joint research unit of CNRS and University Paris-Saclay (UMR 8626), hosting around 50 researchers. It aims at modeling, qualitatively understand, and quantitatively describe complex phenomena arising in diverse areas of physics and related disciplines (mathematics, computer science, biology, or social sciences). In essence, the effort is in understanding emergent and collective phenomena. The research topics are centered around statistical physics with openings to the physics of condensed matter.

Research Themes

• Condensed matter, quantum fluids, topological defects in electronic systems, ferroelectricity and charge ordering in organic conductors, conducting polymers, coherent transport in mesoscopic networks, Kondo effect and quantum dots, Bose-Einstein condensation, strongly correlated fermions, quantum transport, quantum information.
• Statistical physics, dynamical systems, extreme value statistics, growth problems, topological aspects, nodes and braids, Brownian motion, integrable models, quantum chaos, thermodynamics of finite systems, number theory.
• Disordered systems, soft matter, physics biology interface, glasses, optimization, biophysics, information theory, colloids, non-equilibrium systems, granular gases (kinetic and hydrodynamic theory).

Contact

LPTMS – Bâtiment Pascal n° 530
rue André Rivière – Université Paris-Saclay
91405 Orsay CEDEX, FRANCE