for me as well. I'm bound with all things I have or had to do urgently and experience a hopelessly collapsing schedule. My Lord, let my brain and typing fingers to attend these matters and set my soul free to enjoy your feast.

Christ is risen, dear reader!

This workshop is about to be officially announced, look here. Below is the announcement

Quantum Noise and Measurement in Engineered Electronic Systems

International Workshop – 8 - 12 October 2012

Scientific Coordinators:
Wolfgang Belzig (Universität Konstanz, Germany)
Michel Devoret (Yale University, USA)
Yuli V. Nazarov (TU Delft, The Netherlands)

Organisation:
Katrin Lantsch (Max-Planck-Institut für Physik komplexer Systeme Dresden, Germany)

Supported by the SFB 767 "Controlled Nanosystems" 

The announcement's pdf-file

The aim to manipulate, control, and measure electronic devices at the single quantum level has shaped the last decade in mesocopic physics. The measurement procedure itself, as well as the effect of a dissipative environment, are intrinsically quantum in these systems, which poses a challenge to experimentalists as well as theorists. These problems are common for the full counting statistics of electrons passing in a nanodevice, fluctuations and amplification in quantum-limited complex circuits, and the next-generation qubit schemes. The workshop strives to achieve the synergy of these research fields at the level of theory and experiment.

The list of invited speakers includes:
T. Brandes (Berlin, Germany), M. Büttiker (Geneva, Switzerland), A. Clerk (Montreal, Canada), L. DiCarlo (Delft, The Netherlands), K. Ensslin (Zürich, Switzerland), D. Esteve (Gif-sur-Yvette, France), Y. Gefen (Rehovot, Israel), S. Girvin(New Haven, USA), D.C. Glattli (Gif-sur-Yvette, France), M. Heiblum (Rehovot, Israel), T. Kippenberg (Lausanne, Switzerland), J. König (Duisburg, Germany), T. Kontos (Paris, France), G.B. Lesovik (Moscow, Russia), L. Levitov(Cambridge, USA), F. Marquardt (Erlangen, Germany), T. Martin (Marseille, France), K. Mølmer (Aarhus, Denmark),J. Pekola (Aalto, Finland), B. Reulet (Sherbrooke, Canada), R. Schoelkopf (New Haven, USA), G. Schön (Karlsruhe, Germany), C. Schönenberger (Basel, Switzerland), I. Siddiqi (Berkeley, USA), J. van Ruitenbeek (Leiden, The Netherlands), F. von Oppen (Berlin, Germany), A. Wallraff (Zürich, Switzerland)

Applications for participation and poster or oral contributions are welcome and should be made by using the application form on the workshop's web page. The number of attendees is limited. The registration fee for the workshop is 120 EUR and should be paid by all participants. Costs for accommodation and meals will be covered by the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems. Limited funding is available to partially cover travel expenses. Please note that childcare is available upon request.

Applications received before 31 July 2012 are considered preferentially.

For further information please e-mail to:

qnm12pks.mpg.de 

has taken place today. It was a switch to the second book of Kardar. The lecture has began very philosophical since we've discussed reductionism, emerging complexity and all that. So surprise I got distracted and could not say much about the methods... What a pity, again a delay. The next lecture will be on Monday.

Was devoted to a standard topic: statistics of ideal quantum gases. The Bose-condensation was a bit overloaded with details and did not go well. Must revise it next year. Otherwise, the lecture was affordable.

So I am pleased to report another doubling of number of views. It took 531 day to achieve this. Thank you very much, dear reader, for sticking to this blog despite all the variety you can find elsewhere. This is motivating. I am happy with this.

I'm now in Slovakia attending a meeting of European MicroKelvin Collaboration, large network of low-temperature groups. I do not participate in the network and got invited because my temperature fluctuation exercises that, rather unexpectedly, get along with a burst of interest in non-equilibrium thermodynamics of small systems. In comparison with a generic conference, the talks over here are more serious and provide (interesting) technical details: people speak to equally knowlegeable colleagues and expect a usefull feedback. I enjoy this, although frequently it is tough to follow.

is finally accepted by Physical Review Letters, in seven months after the submission. Phase slips rock!

did not go too bad. Guess I could explain use and complexity of perturbation theory in the context. There were also many students.

(At least) two things could go better. 1. I did not exlpain the realtion between cumulants and connected/disconnected diagramms. Fortunately, I got a question, and though I did not manage to gasp it fast, it was exteremly helpful. 2. I should have spent more time on critical point explaining the significance and uniqness of Taylor expansion.

came together for an evaluation meeting. I like so much to compare such meetings with a dental check. The densists are there to find holes in your performance and sometimes are trying to provide an on-spot treatment.

Since I have just recently came to a glorious status of the group leader, my performance in two related aspects was automatically set to a default low value to provide me with more motivation. Anyway, they did not want to sack me right away and we have made several useful appointments.

should have been the third in fact. I still keep the delay for a bit more a half of the lecture. I could have enjoyed a bigger audience today... Anyway, I should not complain since the intereaction with the audience was quite good despite my somehow hasty style.