Pierre Binétruy

Pierre Binétruy (14 August 1955, Casablanca, French Morocco – 1 April 2017, Paris) was a French theoretical physicist, known for his research on cosmology, gravitational waves, strong nuclear interactions, and supersymmetry.

Education and career Pierre Binétruy studied in the 1970s at the École normale supérieure de Saint-Cloud (whose scientific departments were moved in 1987 to Lyon and were named the École normale supérieure de Lyon). Pierre Binétruy received his doctorate from CERN in 1980. His thesis, directed by Mary K. Gaillard, is entitled Theoretical and Phenomenological Aspects fo Gauge Theories. From 1980 to 1983 he held postdoctoral positions at CERN, the University of Florida, and the University of Chicago. From 1983 to 1986 he was a postdoc at the University of California, Berkeley, where he became interested in the astrophysics of the early universe for testing fundamental theories such as supersymmetry and superstrings. From 1986 to 1990 he was at the Laboratoire d'Annecy-le-Vieux de Physique des Particules (LAPP) in Annecy-le-Vieux. From 1990 to 2003 he was a professor at Paris-Sud University (Paris XI) in the Laboratory for Theoretical Physics (from 1999 as Professeur de classe exceptionelle). He aided the sciences of cosmology and astrophysics by serving on many committees. From 1995 to 2003 he was the president of the theory division of the Société Française de Physique.

Binétruy died in 2017 at age 61 from cancer. A memorial conference in his honor was held on the 3rd and 4th of May 2018 at Paris Diderot University. In 2021 CNRS and the University of California, Berkeley opened the Pierre Binétruy Center on the Berkeley campus.

Selected publications Articles

Books as editor with Paul Sorba and Raymond Stora: as editor with Georges Girardi and Paul Sorba: description as editor with Richard Schaeffer, Joseph Silk, and François David:

(English translation of 2015 French original)