Fundamental Physics Prize Foundation Announces Physics Frontiers and New Horizons in Physics Prizes Along With Two Special Prizes

AsiaNet 51620

NEW YORK and GENEVA, Dec. 11/ PRN=KYODO JBN-

            Two $3,000,000 special Fundamental Physics Prizes have been awarded

to Stephen Hawking and to seven scientists who led the effort to discover a

Higgs-like particle at CERN's Large Hadron Collider

           The winner of the 2013 Fundamental Physics Prize will be announced

at a ceremony at CERN[i] on March 20, 2013

    The Fundamental Physics Prize Foundation Selection Committee, which is

comprised of prior recipients of the Fundamental Physics Prize and includes

Nima Arkani-Hamed, Alan Guth, Alexei Kitaev, Maxim Kontsevich, Andrei Linde,

Juan Maldacena, Nathan Seiberg, Ashoke Sen and Edward Witten, is pleased to

announce:

    1. The laureates of 2013 Physics Frontiers Prize are:

    Charles Kane, Laurens Molenkamp and Shoucheng Zhang for the theoretical

prediction and experimental discovery of topological insulators.

    Alexander Polyakov for his many discoveries in field theory and string

theory including the conformal bootstrap, magnetic monopoles, instantons,

confinement/de-confinement, the quantization of strings in non-critical

dimensions, gauge/string duality and many others. His ideas have dominated the

scene in these fields during the past decades.

    Joseph Polchinski for his contributions in many areas of quantum field

theory and string theory. His discovery of D-branes has given new insights into

the nature of string theory and quantum gravity, with consequences including

the AdS/CFT correspondence.

    2. Laureates of the 2013 Physics Frontiers Prize will become nominees for

the 2013 Fundamental Physics Prize. The winner of the Fundamental Physics Prize

will be announced by the Selection Committee at a prize ceremony that will take

place at CERN on March 20, 2013.

    3. The Physics Frontiers Prize laureates who do not go on to be awarded the

Fundamental Physics Prize will each receive $300,000 and will automatically be

re-nominated for the Fundamental Physics Prize each year for the next 5 years.

    4. The laureates of 2013 New Horizons in Physics Prize are:

    Niklas Beisert for the development of powerful exact methods to describe a

quantum gauge theory and its associated string theory.

    Davide Gaiotto for far-reaching new insights about duality, gauge theory,

and geometry, and especially for his work linking theories in different

dimensions in most unexpected ways.

    Zohar Komargodski for his work on the dynamics of four-dimensional field

theories. In particular, his proof (with Schwimmer) of the "a-theorem" has

solved a long-standing problem, leading to deep new insights.

    Each of the laureates will receive $100,000.

    5. In addition, the Selection Committee, foregoing the regular nomination

process, announces the laureates of two Special Fundamental Physics Prizes of

$3,000,000 each:

    One to Stephen Hawking for his discovery of Hawking radiation from black

holes, and his deep contributions to quantum gravity and quantum aspects of the

early universe.

    One to be shared by the leaders of the LHC project, CMS and ATLAS

experiments from the time the LHC was approved by the CERN Council in 1994,

including Peter Jenni, Fabiola Gianotti (ATLAS), Michel Della Negra, Tejinder

Singh Virdee, Guido Tonelli, Joe Incandela (CMS) and Lyn Evans (LHC), for their

leadership role in the scientific endeavour that led to the discovery of the

new Higgs-like particle by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations at CERN's Large

Hadron Collider.

    6. All prizes will be funded by the Milner Foundation

    "Choosing this year's recipients from such a large pool of spectacular

nominations was a very difficult task," said Nima Arkani-Hamed, a member of the

Selection Committee. "The selected physicists have done transformative work

spanning a wide range of areas in fundamental physics. I especially look

forward to future breakthroughs from the first recipients of the New Horizons

in Physics Prize."

    "It is a great honour for the LHC's achievement to be recognised in this

way," said CERN Director General Rolf Heuer. "This prize recognizes the work of

everyone who has contributed to the project over many years. The Fundamental

Physics Prize underlines the value of fundamental physics to society, and I am

delighted that the Foundation has chosen to hold its first award ceremony at

CERN."

    "I am very much pleased with the decisions of the Selection Committee,"

commented Yuri Milner. "I hope that the prizes will bring further recognition

to some of the most brilliant minds in the world and the great accomplishments

they have produced."

                                    ###

    About the Prizes

    The Fundamental Physics Prize Foundation is a not-for-profit corporation

established by the Milner Foundation and dedicated to advancing our knowledge

of the Universe at the deepest level by awarding annual prizes for scientific

breakthroughs, as well as communicating the excitement of fundamental physics

to the public. According to the Foundation's rules, laureates of all prizes are

chosen by a Selection Committee, which is comprised of prior recipients of the

Fundamental Physics Prize. The Selection Committee for the 2013 prizes is

comprised of the following:

    - Nima Arkani-Hamed

    - Alan Guth

    - Alexei Kitaev

    - Maxim Kontsevich

    - Andrei Linde

    - Juan Maldacena

    - Nathan Seiberg

    - Ashoke Sen

    - Edward Witten

    Information on the Fundamental Physics Prize is available at:

http://www.fundamentalphysicsprize.org

    i. CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is the world's

leading laboratory for particle physics. It has its headquarters in Geneva. At

present, its member states are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic,

Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands,

Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United

Kingdom. Romania is a candidate for accession.

Israel and Serbia are associate members in the pre-stage to membership. India,

Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, Turkey, the

European Commission and UNESCO have observer status.

       Media Contacts

       Fundamental Physics Prize Foundation:

       Leonid Solovyev

       solovyev@fundamentalphysicsprize.org

       +44-7590-976-334

       CERN:

       press.office@cern.ch

       +41-(0)22-767-34-32

       +41-(0)22-767-21-41

Source: Fundamental Physics Prize Foundation