Édouard Brézin
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Édouard Brézin (; born 1 December 1938
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
) is a French theoretical
physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...
. He is professor at Université Paris 6, working at the laboratory for theoretical physics (LPT) of the
École Normale Supérieure École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by Secondary education in France, secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing i ...
since 1986.


Biography

Brézin was born in
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
,
France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
, to agnostic
Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
parents from
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
. His father served in the French army during
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
and was taken prisoner by the Germans in 1940, but escaped. The family used false names and Brézin was hidden by farmers. Brézin studied at
École Polytechnique (, ; also known as Polytechnique or l'X ) is a ''grande école'' located in Palaiseau, France. It specializes in science and engineering and is a founding member of the Polytechnic Institute of Paris. The school was founded in 1794 by mat ...
before doing a
PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...
. He worked at the theory division of the '' Commissariat à l'énergie atomique'' in Saclay until 1986. Brezin contributed to the field of physics that deals with the macroscopic physical properties of matter and
high energy physics Particle physics or high-energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The field also studies combinations of elementary particles up to the scale of protons and neutrons, while the stu ...
. He was a leader in critical behavior theory and developed methods for distilling testable predictions for critical exponents. In using field theoretic techniques in the study of condensed matter, Brezin helped further modern theories of
magnetism Magnetism is the class of physical attributes that occur through a magnetic field, which allows objects to attract or repel each other. Because both electric currents and magnetic moments of elementary particles give rise to a magnetic field, ...
and the
quantum Hall effect The quantum Hall effect (or integer quantum Hall effect) is a quantized version of the Hall effect which is observed in two-dimensional electron systems subjected to low temperatures and strong magnetic fields, in which the Hall resistance exhi ...
. Brézin was elected a member of the
French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (, ) is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific method, scientific research. It was at the forefron ...
on 18 February 1991 and served as president of the academy in 2005–2006. He also is a foreign associate of the
United States National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
(since 2003), a foreign honorary member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...
(since 2002), a foreign member of the
Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
(since 2006) and a member of the
Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of humanities, letters, law, and sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europe ...
(since 2003). He is a commander in the French National order of merit and an Officer of the Legion of Honor. He is Chair of the Cyprus Research and Educational Foundation. He was awarded the 2011 Dirac Medal of the
International Centre for Theoretical Physics The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) is a research center for physical and mathematical sciences, located in Trieste, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy. The center operates under a tripartite agreement between the Gov ...
together with John Cardy and Alexander Zamolodchikov. In 2004 he won the
Institute of Physics The Institute of Physics (IOP) is a UK-based not-for-profit learned society and professional body that works to advance physics education, physics research, research and applied physics, application. It was founded in 1874 and has a worldwide ...
President's Medal.


Research work

Edouard Brezin's work is devoted to quantum field theory, mainly for applications in statistical physics. It uses the theoretical formulation of the renormalization group for critical phenomena (equation of states, scaling corrections, etc.). He showed that the low temperature phase, in the case of a continuous symmetry break, is described by a non-linear sigma model, leading to a development of critical exponents in powers of the minus two space dimension. He showed that the instantaneous method can be used to characterize the asymptotic behaviour of perturbation theory, thus allowing accurate theoretical estimates to be made. He has applied field theory techniques to condensed matter problems, such as critical wetting theory or the study of the phase transition from a normal metal to a type II superconductor under magnetic field. He became interested in theories of gauging with a large number of colors. This led to a representation of two-dimensional quantum gravity by random fluctuating surfaces or closed bosonic strings, in terms of random matrices. He showed that the continuous boundary of such models is linked to integrable hierarchies such as KdV flows. He has also worked on establishing the universality of eigenvalue correlations for random matrices.


Notable publications

* * * * * * * * * * * *


Books

* ''The large N expansion in quantum field theory and statistical physics'', E Brezin and S Wadia, World Scientific (1993) * ''Introduction to statistical field theory'', E Brezin, Cambridge University press (2010)


See also

* List of members of the National Academy of Sciences


References


External links

*
Pr Brézin's page on the Academy's site
*

*
Communiqué of November 30, 2004
including a biography {{DEFAULTSORT:Brezin, Edouard 1938 births Living people École Polytechnique alumni École des Ponts ParisTech alumni Corps des ponts 20th-century French physicists Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences Members of Academia Europaea Foreign members of the Royal Society Members of the French Academy of Sciences Commanders of the Legion of Honour Officers of the French Academy of Sciences 20th-century French Jews