Higgs, hadrons, big ideas: CERN experiments receive Breakthrough Prize
In brief
- Four research teams working at CERN at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have received a research prize worth three million dollars.
- The three-million-dollar prize is in recognition of their groundbreaking work carried out at the LHC and for their detailed measurements of Higgs boson properties, the discovery of new particles and the study of rare processes and matter-antimatter asymmetry.
- From 2030, the LHC is to become even more powerful and enable researchers to obtain deeper insights into the structure of the universe.
The Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics was established in 2012 to recognise individuals who have made significant contributions to transforming our understanding of the universe at the most fundamental level. With prize money totaling three million US dollars, it is the most highly endowed prize in physics.
This year, the award has been conferred in recognition of the groundbreaking work carried out by four large collaborative groups of scientists who collected valuable data in the second phase of operation at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) until July 2024.
“I am delighted that we – CERN’s international LHC research community – have received this award. It confirms that great things can be achieved through international collaboration,” says ETH Rector and particle physicist Günther Dissertori. Together with his ETH colleagues Felicitas Pauss, Christoph Grab, Annapaola de Cosa and Rainer Wallny, he was involved in the development and operation of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) particle detector at the LHC and is still using it in his research.
“This prize is impressive proof that the LHC makes it possible to conduct a great deal more basic research than 'just' finding an elementary particle,” adds Rainer Wallny.
In a press release, CERN Director General Fabiola Gianotti also praised the prize as being “beautiful recognition of the collective efforts, dedication, competence and hard work of thousands of people from all over the world who contribute daily to pushing the boundaries of human knowledge”.
The jury's reasoning reads like a compendium of modern particle physics. The award was conferred for “detailed measurements of Higgs boson properties confirming the symmetry-breaking mechanism of mass generation, the discovery of new strongly interacting particles, the study of rare processes and the matter-antimatter asymmetry, and the exploration of nature at the shortest distances and most extreme conditions at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider”.
The prize was presented to the former spokespersons for the experiments: Andreas Hoecker (ATLAS), Patricia McBride (CMS), Marco Van Leeuwen (ALICE) and Vincenzo Vagnoni (LHCb).
Milestones in modern physics
ATLAS and CMS are general-purpose experiments that pursue the full programme of exploration offered by the LHC’s high-energy and high-intensity proton and ion beams. In 2012, the collaborations conducting these experiments announced the discovery of the Higgs boson – a milestone in the history of physics that was recognised a year later with the Nobel Prize in Physics. However, the prize was not awarded directly to the LHC experiments ATLAS and CMS or to CERN itself, but to theoretical physicists François Englert and Peter Higgs.
In addition to ATLAS and CMS, there are two other experiments being conducted at the LHC: the ALICE experiment dedicated to the study of quark-gluon plasma – an extremely hot and dense state of matter that existed in the first microseconds after the Big Bang. The LHCb experiment, in contrast, explores minute differences between matter and antimatter, violation of fundamental symmetries and the complex spectra of composite particles (“hadrons”) made of heavy and light quarks.
Prize money for young scientists
The CERN & Society Foundation prize money of three million US dollars will be donated in consultation with the experimental management teams. The aim is to finance scholarships for doctoral students to fund their research time at CERN, enabling them to gain international experience and apply their know-how back in their own countries.
The award-winning experiments have redefined the boundaries of particle physics with their precise analyses. From 2030, the LHC is to become even more powerful as part of the high-luminosity upgrade. The aim is to gain even deeper insights into the structure of the universe and possibly make new discoveries on the horizon of physics.
“This prize underscores the value of basic research and I hope it will have a signaling effect for politics and society. The next decisive step in continuing this research should be the Future Circular Collider at CERN. To realise the project of the world’s largest ring accelerator, all countries that have supported CERN so far must work together,” says Wallny.
