Stéphan Fauve (born 20 December 1955 in Paris) is a French physicist. He is a professor at the École normale supérieure (ENS) in Paris, a member of the ENS Physics Laboratory.

Biography Stéphan Fauve, is a graduate of the École normale supérieure de Saint-Cloud (1976–1980), agrégé de sciences physiques (1979) and docteur ès sciences (1984).

After defending his thesis in 1984 under the direction of Albert Libchaber as a preparatory associate at the École normale supérieure, Stephan Fauve was successively Professor at the École normale supérieure de Lyon (1987–1997), then at the ENS in Paris since 1997. He is a member of the French Academy of Sciences, Physics section.

Scientific work Stéphan Fauve's work has focused mainly on non-linear physics. His thesis work focused on the study of various scenarios of transition to chaos, in particular the measurement of critical exponents associated with the cascade of period doubling.A. Libchaber, C. Laroche and S. Fauve, « Period doubling cascade in mercury, a quantitative measurement », J. Physique Lettres, 43, (1982), p. 211 He then carried out the first experiment to highlight the phenomenon of stochastic resonance.S. Fauve and F. Heslot, « Stochastic resonance in a bistable system », Physics Letters, 97a, (1983), p. 5 He was one of the founders of the physics laboratory of ENS-Lyon, initiating there the study of various research fields, such as dissipative structures generated by instability,O. Thual and S. Fauve, « Localized structures generated by subcritical instabilities », J. Physique, 49, (1988), p. 1829 granular media,S. Douady, S. Fauve and C. Laroche, « Subharmonic instabilities and defects in a granular layer under vertical vibrations », Europhysics Letters, 8, (1989), p. 621C. Coste, E. Falcon and S. Fauve, « Solitary waves in a chain of beads in Hertzian contact », Phys. Rev., e 56, (1997), p. 6104-6116 sound propagation in complex media (effect of liquid-vapour transition on sound velocity and absorption in two-phase media),C. Coste, C. Laroche and S. Fauve, « Acoustic resonances in a liquid with vapor bubbles : effect of liquid-vapor transition on sound velocity and attenuation », Phys. Rev. Lett., 69, (1992), p. 765-768 sound-vorticity interaction and its application to the detection of intermittent vortex structures in turbulence,B. Dernoncourt, J.-F. Pinton and S. Fauve, « Experimental study of vorticity filaments in a turbulent swirling flow », Physica, d 117, (1998), p. 181-190 the study of surface waves, which led to the first observation of a hydrodynamic quasi-crystalline pattern W. S. Edwards and S. Fauve, « Structure quasicristalline engendrée par instabilité paramètrique », C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, 315-ii, (1992), p. 417-420W. S. Edwards and S. Fauve, « Patterns and quasi-patterns in the Faraday experiment », J. Fluid Mech., 278, (1994), p. 123 and wave turbulence.E. Falcon, C. Laroche and S. Fauve, « Observation of gravity-capillary wave turbulence », Phys. Rev. Lett., 98, (2007), p. 094503E. Falcon, S. Aumaître, C. Falcon, C. Laroche and S. Fauve, « Fluctuations of energy flux in wave turbulence », Phys. Rev. Lett., 100, (2008), p. 064503 He initiated the VKS (von Karman Sodium) collaboration by proposing an experiment on the dynamo effect that led to the first laboratory observation of magnetic field reversal,S. Aumaître, S. Fauve, S. McNamara and P. Poggi, « Power injected in dissipative systems and the fluctuation theorem », Eur. Phys. J., b 19, (2001), p. 449-460Molten Metal Magnet, January 30, 2007, Phys. Rev. Focus 19, 3 ; Earth magnetic field reversals mimicked in the lab, Nature News, 9 March 2007, doi:10.1038/news070305-14 with many similarities to the reversals of the Earth's magnetic field.F. Pétrélis, S. Fauve, E. Dormy and J. P. Valet, « A simple mechanism for the reversals of Earth's magnetic field », Phys. Rev. Lett., 102, (2009), p. 144503 He is currently interested in the statistical properties of large scales in turbulenceV. Dallas, S. Fauve and A. Alexakis, « Statistical equilibria of large scales in dissipative hydrodynamic turbulence », Phys. Rev. Lett., 115, (2015), p. 204501V. Shukla, S. Fauve and M. Brachet, « Statistical theory of reversals in two-dimensional confined turbulent flows », Phys. Rev., e 94, (2016), p. 061101G. Michel, F. Pétrélis and S. Fauve, « Observation of thermal equilibrium in capillary wave turbulence », Phys. Rev. Lett., 118, (2017), p. 144502 and in modelling the quasi-biennial oscillation laboratory, i. e. the quasi-periodic wind reversals in the equatorial stratosphere.B. Semin, F. Pétrélis and S. Fauve, « Nonlinear saturation of the large scale flow in a laboratory model of the quasi-biennial oscillation », Phys. Rev. Lett., 121, (2018), p. 134502

Distinctions Professor at the Institut Universitaire de France (junior) (1992–1997)

IBM Physics Award (1993)

"Batchelor lecturer" (Cambridge University (2004)

Three Physicists Prize (2008)

Lewis Fry Richardson Medal from the European Geosciences Union (2009)

Silver medal from the CNRS (2009)

CEA Prize, French Academy of Sciences (2009)

Professor at the Institut Universitaire de France (senior) (2009)

Member of the French Academy of Sciences (2011)

Member of the Academia Europaea (2011)

References