Laurent Lafforgue

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Laurent Lafforgue (born November 6, 1966, in Antony, Hauts-de-Seine, France) is a French mathematician.

He entered the École Normale Supérieure in 1986. In 1994 he received his Ph.D. in the Arithmetic and Algebraic Geometry team at the Université de Paris-Sud. Currently he is a research director of CNRS, detached as permanent professor of mathematics at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (I.H.E.S.) in Bures-sur-Yvette, France.

In 2002 at the 24th International Congress of Mathematicians in Beijing, China he received the Fields Medal together with Vladimir Voevodsky. Lafforgue made outstanding contributions to Langlands' program in the fields of number theory and analysis, and in particular proved the Langlands conjectures for GL_n of a function field. The crucial contribution by Lafforgue to solve this question is the construction of compactifications of certain moduli stacks of shtukas. The monumental proof is the result of more than six years of concentrated efforts.

He received the Clay Research Award in 2000.

Recently, he has dedicated some of his time to discuss France's educational system, being a critic of what he calls "pedagogically correct".

[edit] References

Lafforgue, L. Chtoucas de Drinfeld et applications. [Drinfeld shtukas and applications] Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians, Vol. II (Berlin, 1998). Doc. Math. 1998, Extra Vol. II, 563--570
Lafforgue, Laurent Chtoucas de Drinfeld, formule des traces d'Arthur-Selberg et correspondance de Langlands. [Drinfeld shtukas, Arthur-Selberg trace formula and Langlands correspondence] Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians, Vol. I (Beijing, 2002), 383--400, Higher Ed. Press, Beijing, 2002.
Gérard Laumon, The work of Laurent Lafforgue, Proceedings of the ICM, Beijing 2002, vol. 1, 91--97
Gérard Laumon La correspondance de Langlands sur les corps de fonctions (d'après Laurent Lafforgue), Séminaire Bourbaki, 52e année, 1999-2000, no. 873