Physicists Win Breakthrough Prize for ATLAS Project in Switzerland

Associate Professors of Physics Peter Onyisi and Tim Andeen received the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, one of the world’s largest science prizes. Recipients are awarded for their achievements in fundamental physics, life sciences, and mathematics.  

In 2012, Onyisi and Andeen were among the researchers who announced the discovery of the Higgs boson, a fundamental particle that gives mass to particles like electrons. Both physicists are currently involved with the ATLAS Collaboration, a project in which thousands of scientists work with the world’s largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.  

Between 2015 and 2018, these physicists helped collect and analyze the data that won them the Breakthrough Prize by making measurements of the particle and demonstrating that it looked like the Higgs boson. 

Explaining the immense difficulty of perceiving and representing the particles involved in this work, Andeen said, “Those three years represented a monumental effort to study this new thing that no one else had ever seen before and no one else could look at.” 

Onyisi agreed: “Because it’s quantum mechanics, what you’re looking for is just more and more rare things,” he said. “And it could be that only one out of every 10 billion collisions will give you something that you’re interested in.” 

Onyisi and Andeen shared the $1 million prize with the other scientists who contribute to the ATLAS project. While their work in pushing the limits of the Standard Model proves a daunting task, the collaboration of thousands of people from dozens of different countries makes it possible.  

“We build pieces of this detector here at UT and other places around the world, and then we all bring our pieces to the site and connect it all,” Andeen said. “It’s a remarkable effort from people from around the world.” 

Read the full story on the College of Natural Sciences website.