The journal Physical Review E, published monthly by the American Physical Society, is celebrating this year its 25th anniversary. On this occasion, the members of the Editorial Board have selected a series of articles – one for each calendar year from 1993 to 2017 - that made important contributions to the field of statistical, nonlinear, biological and soft matter physics. A paper by Mickael Antoni and SISSA Director Stefano Ruffo has been nominated for year 1995 and is now available on the journal’s website.
The study introduced a new model, known as the Hamiltonian Mean Field (HMF), which became a benchmark for studying the statistical mechanics of systems with long-range interactions. Its applications range from plasma physics to the many-body dynamics of self-gravitating systems and, more recently, the physics of cold atoms in cavities. The paper has been cited more than 500 times according to Google Scholar and keeps being quoted after 23 years.
At that time Stefano Ruffo was visiting scientist at CNRS Laboratory of Quantum Physics in Toulouse, on sabbatical leave from Florence University. Mickael Antoni was working with him as a postdoctoral fellow; he is now Full Professor at Aix-Marseille University.