The Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics mourns the loss of its long-term External Scientific Member Lars Brink

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing away of our long time external scientific member Lars Brink on 29 October 2022 at the age of 78. Lars Brink was an emeritus professor at Chalmers University Göteborg, Sweden and a member of the Royal Swedish Academy. In his capacity as an external member of our institute since 2004 he actively contributed to scientific life at the Albert Einstein Institute in many different ways. During his frequent visits to the institute he provided invaluable advice on all matters concerning the institute, and we were able to benefit greatly from his numerous connections all over the world.

Lars was a world class theoretical physicist, with many pioneering contributions, in particular to the development of supergravity and superstring theory, as well as many other topics. To name just one, his seminal work on maximal (N=4) supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory laid the very foundation for modern string theory and the AdS/CFT correspondence. In spite of all these achievements he always remained a modest and most approachable person.

Lars received numerous honors during his long career. In addition he served on the physics Nobel Prize Committee for many years, and as its chairman for the 2013 Nobel Prize in physics. He leaves behind his wife Åsa, and their daughters Jenny and Maria with their families, to whom we express our sincere condolences. We will always remember him as a great friend and supporter of AEI.

Bruce Allen
Alessandra Buonanno
Karsten Danzmann
Guido Müller
Hermann Nicolai
Bernard Schutz
Masaru Shibata