The 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics is awarded co-authors of publications based on CERN’s Large Hadron Collider Run-2 data released between 2015 and July 15, 2024, at the experimental collaborations ATLAS, CMS, ALICE and LHCb. (ATLAS – 5,345 researchers; CMS – 4,550; ALICE – 1,869; LHCb – 1,744). The $3 million prize is allocated to ATLAS ($1 million), CMS ($1 million), ALICE ($500,000) and LHCb ($500,000). In consultation with the leaders of the experiments, the Breakthrough Prize Foundation donated 100 percent of the prize funds to the CERN & Society Foundation.

At the subatomic level, particles interact through force carriers, such as photons for electromagnetism and gluons for the strong force. Unlike photons, gluons carry a color charge, making the strong interaction highly complex and difficult to study. Recent experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have shed light on what happens when high-energy protons pass close to each other. Protons can scatter elastically by exchanging photons or, intriguingly, through a more powerful mechanism involving the exchange of multiple gluons. This exchange is facilitated by a theoretical construct known as the pomeron.

Anikó Horváth, a member of our group, won the 1st place in the ELTE Faculty of Science’s TDK round with her work titled ”Correlation Analysis of Charm (c) Quarks Produced in High-Energy Proton-Proton Collisions with Simulations” (Supervisors: Eszter Frajna, Róbert Vértesi). Congratulations to Anikó for her achievements! Horváth Anikó csoporttagunk ”Nagyenergiás proton-proton ütközésekben keletkező bájos (c) kvarkok korrelációs vizsgálata szimulációkkal” című munkája (Témavezetők: Frajna Eszter, Vértesi Róbert) I. helyezést nyert az ELTE TTK kari fordulón. Az eredményekhez gratulálunk Anikónak!

Siklér Ferenc, head of the RMI High Energy Physics Department became a corresponding member in the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The new members were introduced at the 195th public assembly of the HAS. A Magyar Tudományos Akadémia levelező tagja lett Siklér Ferenc, az RMI Nagyenergiás Fizikai Osztály osztályvezetője. Az új tagokat az MTA 195. közgyűlésén mutatták be. “1971-ben született Győrben. 2014-től az MTA doktora. A Wigner Fizikai Kutatóközpont Részecske- és Magfizikai Intézetének tudományos tanácsadója. Szűkebb szakterülete a kísérleti részecskefizika. Az MTA Részecskefizikai Bizottság elnöke, a European Committee for Future Accelerators (ECFA) tagja, az erős kölcsönhatás tanulmányozásának nemzetközileg elismert kutatója. Világszínvonalú eredményeket ért el a protonok és atommagok nagy energiájú ütközéseinek kísérleti vizsgálata és a fellépő folyamatok megértése területén. Innovatív kiértékelési módszereket dolgozott ki gáztöltésű és szilíciumalapú detektorokban töltött részecskék nyomkövetésére és a kölcsönhatási pontok meghatározására. Gráfelméleti ismeretekre alapozva új módszert vezetett be a nagy részecskeszámú ütközések elemzésére, amely különösen fontossá vált a nagy multiplicitású proton-proton ütközéseknél. A proton-proton, proton-atommag és atommag-atommag ütközésekben megmutatta, hogy a keltett részecskékre jellemző tulajdonságok erősen függnek a részecskeszámtól (gluontelítés jelensége), viszont az ütközés energiájával alig változnak. Több éven keresztül kiemelkedő szerepet játszott a CERN LHC-gyorsítónál a TeV-es energiaskálán begyűjtött kísérleti adatok elemzésében és világelső publikálásukban.

The Quark Matter 2022 - XXIXth International Conference on Ultra-relativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions brings together theoretical and experimental physicists from around the world to discuss new developments in high energy heavy ion physics. The focus of the discussions is on the fundamental understanding of strongly-interacting matter at extreme conditions, as formed in ultra-relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions, as well as on emergent QCD phenomena in high-multiplicity proton-proton and proton-nucleus collisions. Our group had four poster contributions on this prestigious scientific event:

We successfully applied for the distinguished Wigner Research Group title for the year 2022. The scientific management of the Wigner Research Centre for Physics awarded the most outstanding groups based on project proposals and past scientific performance with the “Wigner Research Group” title and a corresponding funding budget. We will use this support responsibly and transparently, mainly to continue our ongoing research up to the highest standards and to participate in the preparations for the LHC Run3 data taking period, as well as to engage in scientific public activities.

Our colleague Ákos Sudár won the 1st place in the BME Faculty of Technical Informatics’ TDK round with his Scientific Student Research Paper titled “Application of Statistics-Motivated Iterative Image Reconstruction Procedure in Proton Computed Tomography.“ In addition to the ranking, Ákos also received the student scholarship from the Pro Progressio Foundation and a special award from the Hungarian Society of Medical Physics. Congratulations to Ákos and his supervisor, Mónika Varga-Kőfaragó, for their outstanding results!

The Zimányi School Winter Workshop, organized jointly by ELTE and the Wigner FK, will take place for the 21st time between 6 and 10 December 2021. http://zimanyischool.kfki.hu/21/ Our workshop, as usual, aims to summarize the developments of 2021 in high energy (mostly heavy ion) physics, with particular attention to the new data emerging from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS). We will discuss results and plans from other high energy nuclear and particle physics facilities of the world, most importantly lower energy colliders, exploring the nuclear phase diagram (with special attention to FAIR, J-PARC and NICA). Another important point of the workshop is to discuss important new results in small systems, hydrodynamics, flow, jets, heavy flavor, femtoscopy and related topics. One of the main aims of the School is to encourage interaction between the theoretical and experimental community. A slightly overlapping list of topics of the School includes (in alphabetical order) is the following:

Our colleague Endre Futó, a retired member of the High-Energy Physics Division’s Hadron Physics Research Group at RMI, received his golden diploma last week at Charles University in Prague. Endre Futó earned his diploma in 1970 and began working at the Šafarik Science University in Košice, where he conducted research on cosmic radiation. Later, he joined the team at KFKI and got involved in research projects connected to CERN. Most recently, he assisted in the development of the ALICE group’s TPC (Time Projection Chamber) detector, as reported in the following news article: https://wigner.hu/hu/jelentos-magyar-hozzajarulassal-keszult-el-cern-alice-kiserlet-uj-nyomkoveto-detektora