authors: Davit Aslanyan and Tomohiro Hashizume

The Statistical Physics of Complex Systems Conference was held on May 7-11, 2019 at the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics (NORDITA) in Stockholm, Sweden. The event was organized by Statistical and Nonlinear Physics Division of EPS. With the support from EPS Young Minds project, which provided several bursaries for students, Tomohiro Hashizume, a Strathclyde SCOPE representative, and Davit Aslanyan, a Yerevan Young Minds section member, were able to attend this meeting.

As Tomohiro’s background is studying dynamics of strongly correlated quantum systems on an exotic lattice geometry and coupling graphs, he was excited to attend the conference. For him, a talk on statistical physics on complex networks by Prof. Gabrielli and a talk on the thermodynamics and statistical physics on strongly correlated open system were particularly interesting. “They gave me a great insight into the tools and techniques on interpreting the physical processes happening in such exotic systems,” Tomohiro noted.

For Davit, a big highlight of the conference was the power grid symposium. It featured a talk on electric clock lag caused by power grid frequency fluctuations. Presenters also discussed some possible methods aimed at preventing this problem. Another talk highlighted the future European electricity network model fueled mostly by wind and solar energy, and applied statistical physics’ role in calculating how much storage and backup conventional power plants will be needed to sustain the effective work of the system.

It is worth mentioning that the topics of this conference went beyond conventional statistical physics. Many of the talks were on statistical physics’ techniques applied to real-world problems such as optimisation of air travels, neurological systems, social behaviours, and development of fault-safe mechanism for working on a complex networks.

Apart from the technical talks, NORDITA provided us with a nice dinner cruise along the northern coast of Sweden with gorgeous landscapes of Stockholm archipelago with amazing Swedish food.

To conclude with, the conference was saturated with talks on interesting topics, provided venues both for informal and formal discussions, gave an opportunity for young scientists, such as us, to gain experience and get advice from leading researchers of the field and lay the foundations for collaborations. Of course, we were also able to present our researches and promote EPS Young Minds project during the poster session.

We are very thankful to EPS and Young Minds project action committee for giving us an opportunity to participate in this conference.