Costas kounnas biography death

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Costas Christou Kounnas (Κώστας Χρήστου Κουννάς, 23 January – 21 January ) was a Cypriot theoretical physicist, known for his research on string theory, supersymmetry, supergravity, GUTs, and quantum chromodynamics.

Renowned Cypriot—French theoretical physicist Costas Kounnas passed away suddenly on 21 January, two days before his 70th birthday. Born in Famagusta, Cyprus, Costas did his undergraduate studies at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens before moving to Paris for his advanced degree. He joined the CNRS in , and later took up a postdoctoral fellowship at CERN, where he made seminal contributions to models of supersymmetry and supergravity.

In particular, he helped develop supergravity models in which supersymmetry was broken spontaneously without generating any vacuum energy — a bugbear of globally supersymmetric theories. Working with Costas on these models was one of our most exhilarating collaborations. Costas then moved to Berkeley where he became a world expert in the construction of string models, showing in particular how they could be formulated directly in four dimensions, without invoking the compactification of extra dimensions.

Many of his best-known papers during these periods concerned cosmological aspects of string models, loop corrections and the breaking of supersymmetry — topics in which he was a world leader. Among his accolades, Costas was awarded the Paul Langevin Prize of the French Physical Society in and the Gay-Lussac Humboldt Prize in for outstanding scientific contributions, especially to cooperation between Germany and France.

Kostas Christou Kounnas, one of the greatest Physicist and Mathematician born in Cyprus, passed away last Friday, January 21, The funeral service will be chanted Missing: biography.

In addition, he received a prestigious Research Award from the Adolf von Humboldt Foundation in His many friends mourn the passing, not just of a distinguished theoretical physicist, but also of a warm colleague with a great heart that he was not shy of wearing on his sleeve. Costas enjoyed participating exuberantly in scientific discussions, always with the overriding aim of uncovering the truth.

We remember a joyful and energetic friend who was passionate about many other aspects of life beyond science, including his many friendships and his home island of Cyprus. He was active in efforts to develop its relations with CERN, where it is now an Associate Member on its way towards full membership. Topics Nuclear Physics.

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