Nicolas Boulanger
Research interests: higher spin gravity and higher symmetries, duality in (super)gravity theories, Weyl-invariance in extended models of gravity, quantization of gauge systems.
Bio sketch: Nicolas Boulanger was born in Namur, Belgium, in 1977. He obtained his Ph.D. Degree in Physics from ULB Brussels (Belgium) in 2003, under the supervision of Marc Henneaux. After post-doctoral stays at the DAMTP (Cambridge, U.K.), then at the University of Mons (Mons, Belgium) and Scuola Normale Superiore (Pisa, Italy), he got an F.R.S.-FNRS Research Associate position at the University of Mons (UMONS) in 2009. In 2015 he received the Théophile De Donder prize for Mathematical Physics from the Royal Academy of Belgium and created the unit that is now called Physics of the Universe, Fields and Gravitation. In 2017, he was promoted Senior Research Associate of the F.R.S.-FNRS and in 2018 was appointed full time Associate Professor of UMONS. His research activities are mostly focused on the quantization of gauge theories, duality, supergravity and higher-spin gauge theories, the main expertise of the unit. He is also involved in research activities in biomechanics and human motor control, within a pluri-disciplinary team involving ingeniors and physiotherapists. He has been Visiting Professor at the Universities of Tours and Aix-Marseille and spent several stays as invited visitor at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHES), Bures-sur-Yvette, France.
Teaching:
- Electromagnetism (BA2)
- Analytical Mechanics (BA3)
- Group Theory (BA3)
- Quantum Field Theory I (MA1)
Selected publications:
- T. Basile, X. Bekaert, N. Boulanger, Mixed-symmetry fields in de Sitter space: a group theoretical glance, JHEP 05 (2017) 081 [arXiv:1612.08166 [hep-th]].
- N. Boulanger, P. Sundell, P. West, Gauge fields and infinite chains of dualities, JHEP 09 (2015) 192 [arXiv:1502.07909 [hep-th]].
- X. Bekaert, N. Boulanger, P. Sundell, How higher-spin gravity surpasses the spin two barrier: no-go theorems versus yes-go examples, Rev. Mod. Phys. 84 (2012) 987-1009 [arXiv:1007.0435 [hep-th]].
- N. Boulanger, Algebraic Classification of Weyl Anomalies in Arbitrary Dimensions, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98 (2007) 261302 [arXiv:0706.0340 [hep-th]].
- X. Bekaert, N. Boulanger, On geometric equations and duality for free higher spins, Phys. Lett. B 561 (2003) 183-190 [arXiv:hep-th/0301243].
Other publications:
- N. Boulanger, L’anomalie conforme en dimensions 4 et 6. Dérivation par la méthode de DeWitt-Schwinger et via la correspondance AdS/CFT, Master Thesis (supervisor: Marc Henneaux, ULB, June 1999).
Contact
Université de Mons
Bâtiment de Vinci
Avenue Maistriau, 15
7000 Mons
nicolas.boulanger@umons.ac.be
+32 (0)65 373414