Michel Enock
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1 June 1947
Pontryagin-style dualities for non-commutative topological groups
Michel Enock | |
|---|---|
 Michel Enock, August 2005 | |
| Born | Michel André Georges Enock Levi 1 June 1947 Boulogne-Billancourt, France |
| Died | 5 June 2025 |
| Alma mater | Paris Diderot University Pierre and Marie Curie University |
| Known for | Kac algebras Pontryagin-style dualities for non-commutative topological groups |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematics, Functional analysis |
| Institutions | French National Centre for Scientific Research Sorbonne Paris North University |
| Thesis | Algèbre tensorielle, algèbre symétrique d’un espace hilbertien (1971) |
| Doctoral advisor | Jacques Dixmier |
| Doctoral students | 2 |
| Website | http://webusers.imj-prg.fr/~michel.enock |
Michel Enock-Levi (1 June 1947 – 5 June 2025) was a French mathematician and a research director at CNRS,[1] credited with the early development of Pontryagin-style dualities for non-commutative topological groups. Enock died in June 2025, at the age of 78.[2]
Enock is known for the 1992 book co-authored with Jean-Marie Schwartz on the subject of Kac algebras,[3] (not to be confused with Kac-Moody algebras). According to the French mathematician Alain Connes,[4] the book develops the general theory to characterize quantum groups among Hopf algebras, similar to the characterization of Lie groups among locally compact groups, "with emphasis on the analytical aspects of the subject instead of the purely algebraic ones". Further, Connes writes:
The theory of Kac algebras and their duality, [was] elaborated independently by M. Enock and J. -M. Schwartz, and by G. I. Kac and L. I. Vainermann in the seventies. The subject has now reached a state of maturity
Specifically, Enock co-developed a general Pontryagin duality theory for all locally compact groups.
