1 week Ago By Laurice Angeles
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rapplerAds.displayAd( "mobile-middle-1" );MANILA, Philippines – Physicist Marvin Flores, an assistant professor of the National Institute of Physics (NIP) in the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman, is among over 3,000 ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC Apparatus) prize winners in the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. The Breakthrough Prize, founded in 2012 by Sergey Brin, Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, Yuri and Julia Milner, and Anne Wojcicki, recognized the ATLAS experiment for its “detailed measurements of Higgs boson properties,” which confirm fundamental concepts in physics.
The Higgs boson is a particle linked to a field that gives mass to basic building blocks of matter — the particles that form atoms, and atoms that make up the universe as we know it.“The Breakthrough Prize is a testament to the dedication and ingenuity of the ATLAS Collaboration and our colleagues across the [Large Hardon Collider] experiments,” ATLAS spokesperson Stephane Willocq said as quoted in a statement. “The results we achieved with its dataset have deepened our understanding of the Higgs boson.
..and the fundamental symmetries of nature.
”Alongside ATLAS, the awarding body also recognized ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment), CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid), and LHCb (Large Hadron Collider beauty). All four are particle detectors at the Large Hadron Collider of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland.The $3 million prize is divided among the four experiments: ATLAS and CMS each receive $1 million, while ALICE and LHCb each receive $500,000.
Although the ATLAS is at the CERN in Switzerland, the experiment has been worked on by teams in 257 institutes in 45 countries around the world, with 6,063 participants in total. Among those teams is the one at UP Diliman, with the NIP at the forefront; Flores leads this team. ATLAS DETECTOR.
The ATLAS has the dimensions of a cylinder, 46 meters long, 25 meters in diameter, and sits in a cavern 100 meters below ground. The ATLAS detector weighs 7,000 tons, similar to the weight of the Eiffel Tower. Photo from the ATLAS website Flores’ team has worked on BSM modelling and simulation for ATLAS since 2021.
BSM stands for “beyond the Standard Model,” a part of physics that goes outside the Standard Model theory, a well-tested theory which encapsulates the best understanding of the basic building blocks of the universe. “This recognition affirms the impact of our contributions and inspires us to continue exploring the universe’s most fundamental questions,” Flores said as quoted in a press release.According to the College of Science at UP Diliman, the High Energy Physics & Phenomenology team of 15 physicists and students at the NIP is “deeply involved in preparing ATLAS for its next chapter.
” Alongside the team’s theoretical and phenomenological contributions, the team also plans to form the ATLAS Philippine Cluster involving other universities in the Philippines. While ATLAS celebrates its achievement, its focus “remains firmly on the future.”“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,” Willocq said.
– Rappler.com.
