\u201cThis recognition is not just about a singular discovery\u2014it\u2019s a celebration of the collaborative spirit and the lasting impact of institutions like BU in one of the most ambitious scientific undertakings of our time,\u201d said <\/span>Zeynep<\/span> Demiragli<\/span><\/span><\/a>, associate professor of physics. \u201cThe Breakthrough Prize was awarded to the CERN experiments, and BU is proud to have played a key role through its long-standing involvement in both the CMS and ATLAS collaborations.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n CERN, or the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is a research laboratory that uses large, complex scientific instruments, particularly particle accelerators and detectors, including the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)<\/a>, to study the fundamental constituents of matter and the forces that govern their interactions.<\/span><\/p>\n BU researchers were part of two of the four experiments conducted at CERN that received the Breakthrough Prize<\/a> in Fundamental Physics, also known as the \u201cOscars of Science,\u201d which recognizes individuals in the fields of life sciences, fundamental physics, and mathematics who have made profound contributions to human knowledge.\u00a0<\/span>The two experiments were \u201cA Toroidal LHC Apparatus (ATLAS) Collaboration\u201d and the \u201cCompact Muon Solenoid (CMS) Collaboration.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Along with Demiragli<\/span>, Professors of Physics Lawrence Sulak<\/a> and James Rohlf<\/a>, Associate Professor of Physics Indara Suarez<\/a>, Assistant Professors of Physics Frank Golf<\/a> and David Sperka<\/a>, and Adjunct Professors of Physics Tiziano Camporesi<\/a> and Chiara Mariotti<\/a> were involved in the CMS Collaboration. BU was also well represented in the ATLAS Collaboration with\u00a0<\/span>Professor of Physics John Butler, <\/a>Professor Emeritus of Physics Steve Ahlen<\/a>,\u00a0and research scientists<\/a>\u00a0James Shank, Saul Yousset, and Yan Zhen.<\/p>\n \u201cI came to BU to build these future experiments,\u201d said Suarez. \u201cIt’s really a team effort that has allowed BU to be a very noticeable presence on the CMS experiment.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The CMS and ATLAS experiments investigate properties of the Higgs boson\u2014a fundamental particle first predicted in 1964 and proven to exist with the first run of experimental data from the CMS experiment in 2012\u2014and pose new scientific questions about the Standard Model\u2014the <\/span>prevailing theory of particle physics that describes all known particles and forces in the universe\u2014and<\/span>\u00a0the relationship between the Higgs boson and dark matter.<\/p>\n The prize money, including a million dollars each awarded to CMS and ATLAS, will support the experiments and future research with a third run of data to occur at the end of the decade. With these funds, collaborations will be able to offer grants to doctoral students from BU to do research at CERN and work with the LHC.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe next thing we’re doing is building the next generation of experiments that will really be able to answer or shine a light on some of these open questions,\u201d Golf said.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Physics faculty are amongst 13,000 researchers celebrated for their work at CERN\u2019s Large Hadron Collider in Geneva. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20868,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85127"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20868"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85127"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85215,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85127\/revisions\/85215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/physics\/files\/2025\/04\/image001-1-636x297.jpg\")