Stockholm university
Department of Physics

Fysikum physicists among winners of prestigious Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics

Scientists from Stockholm University are among the worldwide researchers honored with the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, awarded to the ATLAS Collaboration at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) alongside its sister experiments ALICE, CMS and LHCb. The prize was founded in 2012 by Yuri Milner to recognize those individuals who have made profound contributions to human knowledge.

The ATLAS collaboration with some of the researchers
The ATLAS collaboration with some of the researchers. Photo: ATLAS experiment, atlas.cern

As a founding member of the collaboration, Stockholm University has been at the forefront of ATLAS research since 1992, contributing to:

  • Construction and operation of the Hadronic Tile Calorimeter and the First Level Calorimeter Trigger, systems which are critical for reconstructing the signatures of quarks and gluons produced in LHC’s particle collisions.
  • Development of luminosity, jet reconstruction and flavour tagging algorithms, enabling the discovery of the Higgs boson and a broad program of precision measurements and searches for new physics phenomena.
  • Leadership in detector development, detector operations, triggering, data quality, data reconstruction and data analysis, shaping the experiment's scientific direction.

“I am extremely proud to see the extraordinary accomplishments of the LHC collaborations honoured with this prestigious Prize”, said Fabiola Gianotti, Director-General of CERN.

The prize celebrates the collaborative effort to establish the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism of spontaneous electroweak symmetry breaking, test the Standard Model with remarkable precision, uncover rare and exotic particle interactions, and search for new physics phenomena that could reshape our understanding of the universe.

“The Breakthrough Prize is a testament to the dedication and ingenuity of the ATLAS Collaboration and our colleagues across the LHC experiments”, said ATLAS Spokesperson Stephane Willocq. “This prize recognises the collective vision and monumental effort of thousands of ATLAS collaborators worldwide. We are now preparing the ATLAS detectors of the future — designed to harness this unprecedented data and further push our understanding of the universe’s fundamental building blocks”, concludes Willocq.

Some of the laureates from Fysikum, Stockholm University are: Sara Strandberg, Christophe Clement, Jörgen Sjölin and David Milstead.

“It’s incredibly rewarding to see the results of Stockholm University's long-term commitment to ATLAS”, said Sara Strandberg, Professor at Stockholm University. “Our team is deeply involved in every aspect of the experiment — from the construction of the calorimeter system to analyzing the data. We also hold key leadership roles within the collaboration. For example, one of our members currently oversees the entire ATLAS trigger program.”

“Our team's work on novel analysis techniques to explore the Higgs sector and its role in the early universe exemplifies the innovation driving ATLAS forward”, said Christophe Clement, Professor at Stockholm University. “This recognition affirms the impact of our contributions and inspires us to continue exploring the universe’s most fundamental questions, through innovation and exploitation of the Run 3 data and through preparation for the upcoming High-Luminosity LHC upgrade.”

While the ATLAS Collaboration celebrates the recognition of the Breakthrough Prize, its focus remains firmly on the future. The third operation period of the LHC is currently underway as preparations for the High-Luminosity LHC upgrade — designed to boost collision rates tenfold— are in full swing.

Stockholm University’s team of 26 physicists, students and engineers is deeply involved in preparing ATLAS for its next chapter. Stockholm University holds a leading responsibility in the design and production of the high speed, radiation-hard readout electronics for TileCal at the HL-LHC, ensuring precision and reliability. A dedicated laboratory has now been established at the department to rigorously test over 1,000 electronics boards before their shipment and installation at CERN starting next year.

 

The affiliates from Fysikum

•    Alessandro Montella 
•    Alex Kastanas 
•    Antonia Strubig 
•    Barbro Åsman (emeritus) 
•    Christian Bohm (emeritus) 
•    Christophe Clement 
•    Damir Duvnjak 
•    David Brunner 
•    David Milstead 
•    Dongwon Kim 
•    Eduardo Valdes Santurio 
•    Ellen Riefel 
•    Jörgen Sjölin 
•    Kerstin Jon-And (emeritus) 
•    Samuel Silverstein 
•    Sara Strandberg 
•    Sten Hellman (emeritus) 
•    Tom Ingebretsen Carlson 
•    Torbjörn Moa (emeritus) 

 

Earlier laureates from Fysikum

2015: Ariel Goobar, member of the SCP team
2018: Hiranya Peiris, member of the WMAP team

 

More information

2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics

Laureates for the Breakthrough Prize

World's largest particle accelerator restarts - interview with professor Sara Strandberg

Measuring the Higgs Boson Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation

Looking for new elementary particles Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation

ATLAS-experimentet i en monter på AlbaNova
ATLAS-experimentet i en monter på AlbaNova. Foto: Gunilla Häggström
Sara Strandberg - ATLAS-experimentet. Foto: Anette Gärdeklint Sylla
Sara Strandberg har arbetat med ATLAS-experiment. Foto: Anette Gärdeklint Sylla
ATLAS-experimentet. Foto: Anette Gärdeklint Sylla
ATLAS-experimentet. Foto: Anette Gärdeklint Sylla
Theme
Physics - Theme page
Research subject
Astroparticle and Elementary Particle Physics
Research projects
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This project aims at developing a new class of experimental probes for new Higgs-like spin-0 particles with the ATLAS experiment at LHC, and to interpret the experimental results in complete models that predict primordial Gravitational Waves (GW).

Research
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In the Standard Model, the mass of the Higgs boson is greatly destabilised by quantum corrections, and free parameters of the model need to be extremely fine-tuned in order to arrive at the measured Higgs mass.

ATLAS EXPERIMENT
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A supersymmetric extension of the standard model can solve the fine-tuning problem of the Higgs mass and explain dark matter. In this project we search for the supersymmetric partner of the top quark with data from the ATLAS experiment at CERN.

Supersymmetriska partnerpartiklar till toppkvarken vid LHC
Research group

Last updated: April 10, 2025

Source: Gunilla Häggström, Communications Officer, Fysikum

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