IGFAE researchers awarded with Breakthrough in Fundamental Physics

More than 30 researchers from IGFAE, a research institute in High Energy Physics attached to the USC and part of the CIGUS Network – an initiative promoted by the Xunta de Galicia that brings together the centres of the system that have demonstrated their scientific excellence were awarded the Breakthrough Medal in the category of Fundamental Physics.

The “Science Oscars” went to the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), and its four main experiments: ATLAS, CMS, ALICE and LHCb. The IGFAE is one of the founding members of this latest experiment, the LHCb, and has a team of 33 people – eight senior researchers, three postdoctoral fellows, fifteen PhD students, one engineer, three technicians and three master’s students – the largest Spanish team in the experiment.

This recognition also includes the staff of the FiTNAE research group at CITENI, led by the Oportunius researcher Diego Martínez, from the Universidade da Coruña.

This prize was awarded by the “detailed measurements of Higgs boson properties confirming the symmetry-breaking mechanism of mass generation, the discovery of new strongly interacting particles, the study of rare processes and matter-antimatter asymmetry, and the exploration of nature at the shortest distances and most extreme conditions at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider”.

The IGFAE´s staff, apart from the experimental and research work, maintains close collaboration with CERN from a theoretical perspective in areas such as quantum chromodynamics, neutrinos or nuclear physics. In addition, IGFAE staff are present in the discussion groups for future CERN projects and the European Strategy on Particle Physics.