Iliopoulos graduated from
National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) in 1962 as a Mechanical-Electrical Engineer. He continued his studies in the field of Theoretical Physics in
University of Paris, and in 1963 he obtained the D.E.A, in 1965 the Doctorat 3e Cycle, and in 1968 the Doctorat d' Etat titles. Between the years 1966 and 1968 he was a scholar at
CERN, Geneva. From 1969 till 1971 he was a Research Associate in
Harvard University.[4] In 1971 he returned in Paris and began working at
CNRS. He also held the director position of the Laboratory of Theoretical Physics of
Ecole Normale Superieure between the years 1991-1995 and 1998-2002. In 2002, Iliopoulos was the first recipient of the Aristeio prize, which has been instituted to recognize Greeks who have made significant contributions towards furthering their chosen fields of science. Iliopoulos and Maiani were jointly awarded the 1987
Sakurai Prize for theoretical particle physics.[5] In 2007 Iliopoulos and Maiani received the
Dirac Medal of the ICTP "(f)or their work on the physics of the charm quark, a major contribution to the birth of the Standard Model, the modern theory of Elementary Particles." And in 2011, Glashow, Iliopoulos, and Maiani received the
High Energy and Particle Physics Prize, awarded by the
European Physical Society (EPS), "(f)or their crucial contribution to the theory of flavour, presently embedded in the Standard Theory of strong and electroweak interactions."[6]
Scientific work
Iliopoulos is a specialist in high energy theoretical physics and elementary particle physics. In 1970, in collaboration with
Sheldon Glashow and
Luciano Maïani, he introduced the so-called "
GIM mechanism" (named after the three authors) which is an essential element of the theory of fundamental interactions known as the "
Standard Model ".[7] 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,[8] he demonstrated that the mathematical coherence of the Standard Model requires symmetry between the elementary constituents of matter, namely quarks (which form
hadrons such as
proton and
neutron) and
leptons (such as
electron,
muon and
neutrinos). This symmetry is also verified experimentally.
Iliopoulos was one of the pioneers of
supersymmetry, the hypothetical symmetry that links
fermions and
bosons. He showed that it has remarkable convergence properties and, in collaboration with P. Fayet,[9] 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.