Breakthrough Prize in Physics for Large-Scale Experiments Including University of Freiburg Researchers
Freiburg, 11/04/2025
This year’s Breakthrough Prize in Physics has been awarded to four particle physics experiments at the CERN research centre in Geneva. Several University of Freiburg research groups were and still are closely involved in the design and operation of these large-scale experiments at the LHC particle accelerator.
Four experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a particle accelerator at the European Organization for Nuclear Research CERN near Geneva, have been awarded the renowned 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for their outstanding contributions to research in fundamental physics. University of Freiburg researchers were closely involved in producing the results. The prizewinning experiments are ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, and LHCb.
“We’re delighted to have our work recognized with this prize. It shows a great appreciation of the progress made in the study of the smallest constituents of matter and the fundamental forces acting between them.”
Prof. Dr. Karl Jakobs
Institute of Physics, University of Freiburg
Quarks and tau leptons
The research groups of the Freiburg particle physics professors Prof. Dr. Karl Jakobs, Prof. Dr. Gregor Herten, and Prof. Dr. Markus Schumacher were involved in the design and operation of the ATLAS experiment, the processing of data at Freiburg’s tier 2 data centre, and the analysis of the data. In January 2025, Freiburg’s involvement in ATLAS was strengthened by a group led by junior professor Dr. Brian Moser. Among other things, the Freiburg groups played a leading role in demonstrating that the Higgs boson also decays into quarks and charged leptons (tau leptons). From 2017 to 2021, Jakobs also helmed the ATLAS Collaboration as spokesperson.
‘We’re delighted to have our work recognized with this prize. It shows a great appreciation of the progress made in the study of the smallest constituents of matter and the fundamental forces acting between them’, says Jakobs. ‘The prize recognizes the great commitment of thousands of scientists and engineers, in particular also that of our doctoral candidates and early career researchers involved in the large-scale collaborations at CERN.’
“The prize expresses recognition of the diverse contributions of the LHCb experiment, which range from the discovery of novel matter-antimatter asymmetries and exceedingly rare particle decays to dozens of new states of hadrons.”
Prof. Dr. Marco Gersabeck
Institute of Physics, University of Freiburg
Matter-antimatter asymmetries
Prof. Dr. Marco Gersabeck from the University of Freiburg’s Institute of Physics has headed a research group collaborating on the LHCb experiment since July 2024. He was already involved in the LHCb experiment for many years in his former function at the University of Manchester. ‘The prize expresses recognition of the diverse contributions of the LHCb experiment, which range from the discovery of novel matter-antimatter asymmetries and exceedingly rare particle decays to dozens of new states of hadrons’, says Gersabeck. ‘The prize also pays special tribute to the many students and young scientists involved in the experiment, without whom projects of this size and this complexity would be unthinkable.’
Physics results
The four particle physics experiments ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, and LHCb received this year’s Breakthrough Prize for the detailed measurement of the properties of the Higgs boson, confirming the mechanism for the generation of masses of elementary particles, as well as for the discovery of new, strongly interacting particles, the study of processes in relation to the asymmetry between matter and antimatter, and research into fundamental particles and forces at extremely small distances and under extreme conditions.
Freiburg silicon detectors
The third data-taking period at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN is currently underway. In addition, preparations are being made for experiments during operation in the high luminosity phase (HL-LHC), in which the collision rate at the LHC will be substantially increased. The Freiburg research groups are also closely involved in the expansion of the ATLAS and LHCb experiments. An example is high-resolution silicon detectors, which are being developed and produced in Freiburg and will be integrated into the experiments in Geneva before the phase begins in 2030.
