The Breakthrough Prize Foundation has awarded $3 million to the four LHC experiments at the CERN laboratory in Geneva for the many discoveries and research studies carried out in recent years in the physics of fundamental interactions.

PISA, 08 April 2025. Among the 13,508 physicists from over 70 countries who won the Breakthrough Prize 2025 in Fundamental Physics, a prize awarded last Saturday in Los Angeles by the Breakthrough Prize Foundation, some were or are part of the Scuola Normale as students, researchers, or professors, often playing key roles in the awarded experiments. These are about 30 scientists who took part in two of the four experiments of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the largest and most powerful particle accelerator ever built, currently operating at the CERN laboratory in Geneva: the CMS and LHCb experiments (the other two awarded experiments are ATLAS and ALICE).

The four experiments have made a fundamental contribution to increase the understanding of physics laws that govern the infinitely small: the 'strong' and 'weak' interactions between the elementary constituents of known matter. Among the reasons for the award, the Breakthrough Prize Foundation mentions the study of the properties of the Higgs Boson, observed for the first time in 2012 also at the LHC experiments, the discovery of many new particles never observed before, and the high-precision study of the tiny differences between matter and antimatter.

Thanks to a close and historic partnership with the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, the Scuola Normale has always been an active part of the research at CERN, participating and contributing significantly to all phases of the experiments: from the construction and assembly of the large detectors to the collection and analysis of data; from the coordination of research groups to the scientific management of the experiments and the laboratory. For example, Professor Lorenzo Foà, who passed away in 2014, was for a long time Director for Research at CERN, and was one of the founding members of the CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) experiment.

The Scuola Normale is one of the historical institutions participating in the CMS experiment, whose purpose is to conduct research on a wide range of physical phenomena, including the discovery and study of the properties of the Higgs boson, the study of the properties of the top quark and the W and Z bosons, the search for "extra dimensions" and new dark matter particles. In the period covered by the prize, the SNS researchers involved were led by Professor Luigi Rolandi, who retired in 2024; together with Prof. Franco Ligabue, and many other protagonists, they are listed among the ranks of the CMS Collaboration (Full list of winners).

Among the objectives of the other experiment in which the Scuola Normale is involved, the Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) experiment, is the high-precision study of some of the most peculiar and intriguing aspects of the fundamental laws of Nature, with which we try to explain why we are made of matter and not antimatter. Scanning the most remote corners of the known Universe with powerful telescopes, only very rare traces of antimatter are found, a truly surprising thing if one considers that after the Big Bang, matter and antimatter should have been present in equal measure. This field of research, where the weak interactions of quarks with "beauty" and "charm" are studied, was introduced at the Scuola Normale by Professor Michael J. Morello starting from his arrival at SNS in 2011, and subsequently involved many researchers who, under the leadership of prof. Morello, have played leading roles in the LHCb Collaboration (Full list of winners).

The Breakthrough Prize 2025 in Fundamental Physics, which consists of $3 million and was received by the various spokespersons of the collaborations, will be used to offer scholarships to doctoral students of the institutions active at CERN.