Recently, four major international experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) - ATLAS, CMS, ALICE, and LHCb - have been awarded the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. Nine faculty members, students and alumni from Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU) were listed among the award recipients for their significant contributions to the ATLAS and CMS collaborations respectively.
Founded in 2012, the Breakthrough Prize honors groundbreaking scientific achievements and underscore the critical importance of fundamental research to humanity. Boasting the largest prize money per category among global science awards, it is widely hailed as the "Oscars of Science."
The School of Physics at SYSU became a formal member of the CMS Collaboration in 2017, where researchers have made substantial contributions to electroweak multiboson interaction analyses, precision tests of Standard Model, and the searches for new physics beyond the Standard Model.
In 2022, SYSU further joined the ATLAS collaboration. The team has since generated nearly 10 high-impact research findings in new physics exploration, including studies in dark matter detection, supersymmetric particle searches, and signatures of extra dimensions.
This year's Breakthrough Prize marks the first time in history that a major fundamental research award has been awarded to the entire membership of large-scale international collaborations, reflecting the global academic community's strong endorsement of worldwide cooperation in advancing cutting-edge science.
This is China’s second win of the prize since 2016, highlighting international recognition of China's sustained contribution to high-energy physics.
The four experimental collaborations will share the US$3 million prize, which will be dedicated to creating doctoral scholarships that enable participating institutions' researchers to pursue advanced studies at CERN.
SYSU's ATLAS and CMS teams received funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), the State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Nuclear Technology, and SYSU itself.
Moving forward, the teams will strengthen their collaboration in the LHC's forthcoming operational cycles and detector upgrades, targeting deeper insights into the fundamental constituents of matter and the cosmic order governing universal evolution.
