Jean Iliopoulos


Jean Iliopoulos is a French-Greek physicist.

Biography

Graduated from the Polytechnic School of Athens in 1962, he specializes in high energy theoretical physics and particle physics. He is one of the pioneers of supersymmetry.
In 1987, he received the prestigious JJ Sakurai Award.
He was one of the founders, at the École normale supérieure, of the Laboratory of Theoretical Physics, which he directed from 1991 to 1995 and from 1998 to 2002.
Jean Iliopoulos has been a member of the French Academy of Sciences since 2002.
In 2007, he won the Dirac Award for his prediction of charming quark.

Scientific work

Jean Iliopoulos is a specialist in high energy theoretical physics and elementary particle physics. In 1970, in collaboration with S.L. Glashow and L. Maïani, he introduced the so-called "GIM" mechanism which is an essential element of the theory of fundamental interactions known as the "Standard Model ". This mechanism postulates the existence of a new elementary particle, the "charmed" quark, a prediction that was confirmed by experience. In 1972, in collaboration with Claude Bouchiat and Philippe Meyer, he demonstrated that the mathematical coherence of the Standard Model requires symmetry between the elementary constituents of matter, namely quarks and leptons. This symmetry is also verified experimentally.
Jean Iliopoulos was one of the pioneers of supersymetry, the hypothetical symmetry that links fermions and bosons. He showed that it has remarkable convergence properties and, in collaboration with P. Fayet, he proposed a mechanism that leads to its spontaneous breakage. He also studied some aspects of the quantum theory of gravitation as well as the mathematical properties of invariant gauge theories formulated in a non-commutative geometric space.

Most significant publications