The 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics has been awarded to four major research collaborations at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research). The ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment), ATLAS, CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid), and LHCb (LHC beauty) collaborations – which together represent the concerted efforts of thousands of researchers from over 70 countries – were recognized as co-authors of publications based on LHC data released between 2015 and July 2024. These impactful research achievements include “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 matter-antimatter asymmetry, and the exploration of nature at the shortest distances and most extreme conditions at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.”
The spokespeople for these experiments (at the time of these results) were present to receive the award during a ceremony in Los Angeles, CA, on April 5. The $3 million prize will be donated to the CERN & Society Foundation, to be allocated among the four collaboration to “offer grants for doctoral students from member institutes to spend research time at CERN, giving the students experience working at the forefront of science and new expertise to bring back to their home countries and regions.”
The ALICE Experiment enables studies of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP), a state of extremely hot, dense matter that existed in the first microseconds immediately after the Big Bang. Berkeley Lab’s Nuclear Science Division (NSD) has maintained a longstanding and prominent role within the ALICE Collaboration since 2005, serving as one of the leading groups within ALICE-USA and ALICE overall, making substantial contributions to scientific leadership, project management, and instrumentation. Researchers in NSD’s Relativistic Nuclear Collisions Program currently lead various studies, analysis efforts, and publications focused on QGP and the emerging phenomena in quantum chromodynamics (QCD), including experiments on jet quenching and ultraperipheral heavy-ion collisions. Berkeley Lab led the construction of ALICE’s Electro Magnetic Calorimeter (EMCal) – which enhances the experiment’s capabilities to measure highly energetic photons, electrons, neutral pions, and jets of particles, and the correlations between them – and spearheaded the U.S. contribution to the development of ALICE’s new Inner Tracker – which enables the use of rare QGP probes (such as Heavy-Quark Jets and photon-jet correlations) to study the nature of strongly-interacting QGP matter with unprecedented precision. In addition to running the DOE-funded ALICE-USA Computing Project, Berkeley Lab continues to drive innovation and strategic planning for future enhancements, including the proposed ALICE 3 upgrade.
The ATLAS Experiment explores a variety of physics phenomena using the LHC’s high-energy and high-intensity proton and ion beams. ATLAS and CMS synchronously announced the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012, and they continue to investigate its properties. Berkeley Lab’s Physics Division has made significant contributions to the ATLAS collaboration since 1994. In addition to leading the measurements of rare phenomena, including precision measurements of the Higgs boson, the Berkeley Lab ATLAS Group has led direct searches for new particles and phenomena that would signify beyond-the-standard-model physics. Berkeley Lab has also played a crucial role in designing and building the ATLAS’ pixel and strip detectors, including the development of next-generation pixel detector and readout chip technology, an innovative strip stave design, and the mechanical support structures for the whole detector, among other contributions. ATLAS Group scientists are also developing the current tracking system’s successor in preparation for LHC’s high luminosity (HL-LHC) upgrade. Berkeley Lab researchers also hold leading roles in the software and computing aspects of the experiment, including the development of advanced machine learning applications, and have pioneered the usage of high-performance computing centers – including Berkeley Lab’s next-generation Perlmutter supercomputer at NERSC (National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center) – in the analysis of ATLAS data and production of large simulations.
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The LHC experiment collaborations at CERN receive Breakthrough Prize
The Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics was awarded to the ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb collaborations during a ceremony held in Los Angeles on 5 April
April 7, 2025 / CERN News
