Suffolk Reporter

Members of the Stony Brook University Department of Physics and Astronomy recently received recognition as part of the recipients of the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. Their accomplishment was due to their experimental collaborations with CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

This prestigious accolade, often dubbed the "Oscars of Science," was established by founders Sergey Brin, Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, Julia and Yuri Milner, and Anne Wojcicki, to honor significant scientific achievements. The team from Stony Brook, which includes professors and researchers such as Arnold, Dao, Engelmann, Hobbs, Jia, McCarthy, Piacquadio, Rijssenbeek, Schamberger, Tsybyshev, and Dr. Bee, has been actively contributing to the ATLAS experiment at CERN. ATLAS is one of several experiments at the LHC, along with CMS, ALICE, and LHCb, which were all recognized by the prize.

The Stony Brook team's notable contributions include advances in understanding Higgs boson particle properties, particularly in decay modes involving bottom quarks, charm quarks, and muon pairs. Their efforts have positioned the university as the leading NSF institution for U.S. contributions to ATLAS operations, software, and computing.

Carl W. Lejuez, the executive vice president and provost, remarked, "Stony Brook’s HEP-ATLAS team has contributed significantly to our understanding of physics, from what could be in dark matter to the Higgs boson particle, and I sincerely congratulate them on the work that has earned them this tremendous recognition." He highlighted the importance of collaboration in scientific endeavors across various institutions and countries.

The award was granted 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 matter-antimatter asymmetry, and the exploration of nature at the shortest distances and most extreme conditions at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider." Chang Kee Jung, distinguished professor and chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, expressed pride in the HEP-ATLAS group's longstanding contributions to the ATLAS experiment and the positive message the Breakthrough Foundation is sending to the field of particle and nuclear physics.

The Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics in 2025 was awarded to thousands of researchers from over 70 countries involved in four experimental collaborations. The $3 million prize money will be donated to the CERN & Society Foundation, supporting grants for doctoral students to conduct research at CERN.

In addition to this achievement, Stony Brook University Professor John Pardon was a co-recipient of the 2025 New Horizon in Mathematics Breakthrough Prize. Pardon was acknowledged for his significant contributions to geometry and topology, particularly in symplectic geometry and pseudo-holomorphic curves.