Jean-Loup Gervais (born 10 September 1936 in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

) is a

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

theoretical physicist Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experimen ...

. Gervais studied

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

and

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

in Paris, where he graduated in 1961 and got his Ph.D. in 1965 as a student of

Claude Bouchiat Claude Bouchiat, born 16 May 1932, is a French physicist, member of the French Academy of sciences. Biography Graduate of the École Polytechnique in 1955, he was director of research at the CNRS in the theoretical physics laboratory of the � ...

and Philippe Meyer in

Orsay Orsay () is a Communes of France, commune in the Essonne Departments of France, department in Île-de-France in northern France. It is located in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France, from the Kilometre Zero, centre of Paris. A fortifie ...

. From 1966 to 1968 he was a

post-doctoral A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a Doctor of Philosophy, PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral rese ...

researcher at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

. Already since 1960 he was employed at the

CNRS The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 ...

, from 1970 on as

Maître de conférences ''Maître'' (spelled ''Maitre'' according to post-1990 spelling rules) is a commonly used honorific for lawyers, judicial officers and notaries in France, Belgium, Switzerland and French-speaking parts of Canada. It is often written in its abbrev ...

. During 1973–1985 he was

École polytechnique École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

. From 1979 to 1983 and from 1995 to 1998 he was director of the Laboratory of Theoretical Physics of the

École Normale Supérieure École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

. He had been a guest professor at the

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...

and also partly at

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, at the

Isaac Newton Institute The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences is an international research institute for mathematics and its many applications at the University of Cambridge. It is named after one of the university's most illustrious figures, the mathema ...

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

(1997), at

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

(UCLA) and at

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduate ...

. Gervais worked on

quantum field theory In theoretical physics, quantum field theory (QFT) is a theoretical framework that combines classical field theory, special relativity, and quantum mechanics. QFT is used in particle physics to construct physical models of subatomic particles and ...

supersymmetry In a supersymmetric theory the equations for force and the equations for matter are identical. In theoretical and mathematical physics, any theory with this property has the principle of supersymmetry (SUSY). Dozens of supersymmetric theories e ...

and

string theory In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. String theory describes how these strings propagate through space and interac ...

. In 1969, he investigated (together with

Benjamin W. Lee Benjamin Whisoh Lee (; January 1, 1935 – June 16, 1977), or Ben Lee, was a Korean-born American theoretical physicist. His work in theoretical particle physics exerted great influence on the development of the standard model in the late 20th ce ...

) renormalisability of theories of

spontaneous symmetry breaking Spontaneous symmetry breaking is a spontaneous process of symmetry breaking, by which a physical system in a symmetric state spontaneously ends up in an asymmetric state. In particular, it can describe systems where the equations of motion or the ...

. In 1971, he presented with

Bunji Sakita was a Japanese-American theoretical physicist who made important contributions in quantum field theory, superstring theory and discovered supersymmetry in 1971. He was a Distinguished Professor of Physics at the City College of New York. Early ...

a supersymmetric invariant

Lagrangian Lagrangian may refer to: Mathematics * Lagrangian function, used to solve constrained minimization problems in optimization theory; see Lagrange multiplier ** Lagrangian relaxation, the method of approximating a difficult constrained problem with ...

in the framework of a precursor of string theory, called the

dual resonance model In theoretical physics, a dual resonance model arose during the early investigation (1968–1973) of string theory as an S-matrix theory of the strong interaction. Overview The dual resonance model was based upon the observation that the amplitud ...

s. In 1969, he calculated one-loop diagrams in the early

, with

Daniele Amati Daniele Amati (born 11 August 1931, in Rome) is an Italian theoretical physicist, specializing in particle physics. Education and career Amati received in 1952 from the University of Buenos Aires his Ph.D. in physics under Richard Gans with a thes ...

and Bouchiat. In the beginning of the 1970s, he also studied, with Sakita, string theories as

conformal field theories A conformal field theory (CFT) is a quantum field theory that is invariant under conformal transformations. In two dimensions, there is an infinite-dimensional algebra of local conformal transformations, and conformal field theories can sometime ...

in two dimensions and then

soliton In mathematics and physics, a soliton or solitary wave is a self-reinforcing wave packet that maintains its shape while it propagates at a constant velocity. Solitons are caused by a cancellation of nonlinear and dispersive effects in the medium ...

theories as field theories of collective excitations, e.g., in the context of WKB wave functions. In the 1980s he studied

(

Skyrmion In particle theory, the skyrmion () is a topologically stable field configuration of a certain class of non-linear sigma models. It was originally proposed as a model of the nucleon by (and named after) Tony Skyrme in 1961. As a topological solito ...

) models of quarks in the limit of many color degrees of freedom ( large-N limit). He then also considered conformal field theories such as the

Liouville field theory In physics, Liouville field theory (or simply Liouville theory) is a two-dimensional conformal field theory whose classical equation of motion is a generalization of Liouville's equation. Liouville theory is defined for all complex values of the ...

, string theories and two-dimensional

quantum gravity Quantum gravity (QG) is a field of theoretical physics that seeks to describe gravity according to the principles of quantum mechanics; it deals with environments in which neither gravitational nor quantum effects can be ignored, such as in the vi ...

from the point of view of exactly

integrable systems In mathematics, integrability is a property of certain dynamical systems. While there are several distinct formal definitions, informally speaking, an integrable system is a dynamical system with sufficiently many conserved quantities, or first i ...

. With

André Neveu André Neveu (; born 28 August 1946) is a French physicist working on string theory and quantum field theory who coinvented the Neveu–Schwarz algebra and the Gross–Neveu model. Biography Neveu studied in Paris at the École Normale Supér ...

, he investigated in the 1980s also non-critical string theories.J-L Gervais and A Neveu: ''Nuclear Physics B'' 209 (1982) p. 125 In 1997 he was awarded the highly reputed ''Prix Créé par l'État'' from the French ''

Académie des sciences The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des 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 research. It was at the ...

''. Among his Ph.D. students are

particle physicist Particle physics or high energy physics is the study of Elementary particle, fundamental particles and fundamental interaction, forces that constitute matter and radiation. The fundamental particles in the universe are classified in the Standa ...

s Antal Jevicki (now professor at

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

) and Adel Bilal.

External links

Homepage with details on work of J-L Gervais

References

*J-L Gervais, M Jacob (Eds): ''Non-linear and collective phenomena in quantum physics. A reprint volume from Physics reports''. World Scientific 1983 *J-L Gervais, A Jevicki and B Sakita: ''A collective coordinate method for the quantization of extended systems''. In: ''Physics Reports'' 23 (1976), p. 237 {{DEFAULTSORT:Gervais, Jean-Loup French physicists 1936 births Living people Scientists from Paris Academic staff of the École Normale Supérieure City College of New York faculty University of California, Berkeley faculty University of California, Los Angeles faculty University of California, Santa Barbara faculty