Prof. Jean Zinn-Justin

Education

Jean Zinn-Justin graduated from Ecole Polytechnique (France) in 1964 and did his PhD thesis under the supervision of Marcel Froissart (University of Orsay, 1968).

Positions

He has a permanent position in the CEA-Saclay theory group since 1966, was postdoc in Stony-Brook (1971-1972), fellow at CERN, lecturer in Princeton and Harvard (Loeb lecturer) and Harris scholar at MIT. He has directed Les Houches school of Physics, the CEA-Saclay theoretical Institute (IPhT) and more recently the CEA Institute of Research into the fundamental Laws of the Universe (IRFU) also in Saclay. He has also been the head editor of Journal de Physique, Journal of Physics A (IOP) and still belongs to the Board of several scientific journals.

Awards

• In 2003 he has received the Humboldt-Gay Lussac award.

Research

Research interests

His scientific interests centre around quantum field theory and renormalization group, and their applications to particle physics and the statistical physics of phase transitions. With Lee, he has given the first proof of the renormalizability of gauge theories in the symmetry broken phase, as relevant for weak interactions. With first Le Guillou and then Guida, he has derived the most precise estimates of critical exponents by field theoretical methods. He has also worked on the statistical properties of large random matrices. As technical tools, he has contributed to the field integral formulation of quantum field theory, to the understanding of the divergence of perturbation series by semi-classical methods (instantons) and to the development of methods to sum divergent series.

Selected articles and books

• Jean, Zinn-Justin (2002). Quantum Field Theory and Critical Phenomena (Fourth edition). The International Series of Monographs on Physics, 113 Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 0198509235