Michel Hénon
Memoriam
organized by Jérôme Perez and Roya Moyahaee, Uriel
Frisch, Jacques Féjoz, Alain Chenciner & Jean-Michel
Alimi
Michel Hénon was a French mathematician and astronomer born
in 1931 in
Paris. He spent his career initially at the Institute d'Astrophysique
de Paris and then at the Observatoire de Nice.
In astronomy, Michel Hénon was a leading figure in the field
of
stellar dynamics, galactic dynamics, and the evolution of the rings of
Saturn. In mathematics, he is known for the so-called Hénon
maps
and attractor, which is one of the most studied chaotic systems.
In the late 1960s and early 70s, he worked on the star clusters and by
using Monte Carlo methods, he developed numerical techniques to follow
the dynamics of globular clusters. His probabilistic method proved to
be much faster than
usual N-body methods.
He published a two volume book on restricted three-body problem.
He died on April 2013 in Nice.
A special tribute shall be made to Michel Hénon during the
Gravasco program at the Institut Henri Poincare :
- A series of seminars, given by renowned scientists, will
be held
every Wednesday afternoons during the month of October 2013 on the
works of Michel Hénon,
- Two exceptional days on 4th and 5th of December,
dedicatted
entirely to the life and the scientific works of Michel
Hénon,
shall close the Gravasco trimestre at IHP.
Two
days for Michel Hénon : December 4th
and 5th 
organized by Jérôme
Perez and Roya Moyahaee,
Uriel Frisch, Jacques Féjoz, Alain
Chenciner & Jean-Michel Alimi
Scientific and personal evocation of the career of Michel Henon.
Memoriam serie of seminars about some astrophysical contributions of
Michel Hénon
organized by Jérôme Perez and Roya Moyahaee
- H1 - October 9th
14h00
- 15h30 : Michel Hénon Numerical studies of hamiltonian
systems and application to galactic potentials [movie of the seminar]
Daniel Pfenniger, Geneva observatory, Switzerland
- H2 - October
16th
14h00 - 15h30 : Michel Hénon contributions about violent
relaxation an stability of self-gravitating systems [movie of the seminar]
Scott Tremaine, IAS Princeton, US
- H3 - October
23th
14h00 - 15h30 : Michel Hénon contributions to collisional
stellar systems [movie of the seminar]
Douglas Heggie, Edimburgh University, Scotland
- H4 - October
30th
14h00 - 15h30 : The amazing and wonderful Hénon's isochrone
model [movie of the seminar]
James Binney, Oxford University, England