On April 5, 2025 (local time), the Breakthrough Prize Foundation announced the winners of the 2025 Breakthrough Prizes in Los Angeles, USA. A total of 13,508 researchers from over 70 countries — including dozens from Central China Normal University — were jointly awarded the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. The prize recognizes their contributions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in precisely measuring the properties of the Higgs boson, thereby confirming the mechanism of mass generation via symmetry breaking, discovering new particles governed by the strong interaction, investigating rare processes and matter-antimatter asymmetry, and exploring nature under the most extreme conditions and at the smallest scales. All recipients are members of the four major experimental collaborations at CERN’s LHC — ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, and LHCb.

As two of the core experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), ALICE and LHCb are both dedicated to the ultimate exploration of the microscopic universe. The ALICE experiment focuses on signals and properties of a new state of matter — quark-gluon plasma — while the LHCb experiment investigates the subtle differences between matter and antimatter, fundamental symmetry violations, and the complex energy spectra of composite particles formed by heavy and light quarks.

Central China Normal University (CCNU) began participating in LHC international collaborative research as early as 1993, joining the ALICE and LHCb experiments in 1993 and 2013, respectively. Since the launch of LHC operations, the CCNU teams have been deeply involved for over three decades, making important contributions in key areas such as particle detector development, experimental data acquisition, and physics analysis.

As the lead Chinese institution in ALICE, CCNU’s team has developed the readout electronics for the photon spectrometer, a supermodule of the sampling electromagnetic calorimeter, 500 silicon pixel modules for the upgraded inner tracking system, and readout link boards for the forward muon tracking system. The current ALICE team includes five core members (Zhou Daicui, Yin Zhongbao, Zhang Xiaoming, Mao Yaxian, and Pei Hua), and their experimental research focuses on jet probes of quark matter, heavy-flavor probes, parton collective behavior, and new physical phenomena in small-system collisions. Their leading research achievements include: the most precise measurement of the nuclear suppression factor of high transverse momentum bottom quarks in the LHC energy regime; the first experimental criterion for the wake effect induced by soft-hard interactions in quark matter; the discovery of underlying similarities in particle production mechanisms in hadronic collisions; and the first observation of differences in production characteristics and origins of strange hadrons inside and outside high-energy jets. These findings have been featured in CERN Courier and CERN News, with the discovery of bottom quark thermalization degrees of freedom selected as a CERN 2023 Highlight.

The CCNU LHCb team currently has five main members (Xie Yuehong, Yin Hang, Chen Kai, Zhang Dongliang, and Zhou Xiaokang), and they have long been devoted to research in heavy-flavor physics, charge-parity (CP) violation, and electroweak physics. Their major achievements include the discovery of the doubly charmed baryon (selected as one of China’s Top Ten Scientific Advances in 2017), the world’s most precise measurement of the Bs meson mixing angle, the first evidence of direct CP violation in B meson decays to charm-anticharm pairs, and a precise determination of the weak mixing angle — a fundamental parameter of the Standard Model. Notably, in a recent breakthrough, the CCNU LHCb team, in collaboration with domestic institutions, made the first observation of CP violation in a baryon system. This achievement has been hailed as a new milestone in the study of fundamental symmetry breaking and has attracted widespread attention from both the academic community and media worldwide.

Currently, the CCNU ALICE and LHCb teams are deeply involved in the development and construction of upgraded detectors. With the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) era set to begin in 2027, both teams will continue to pursue frontier topics within their respective experiments, making sustained efforts to tackle major scientific challenges.

Awarded Members of the CCNU ALICE Team (in alphabetical order):
Haidar Masud Alfanda, Mustafa Naji Anaam, Paolo Bartalini, Cai Mengke, Cai Xu, Chang Wan, Cheng Tiantian, Cui Pengyao, Deng Wenjing, Ding Yanchun, Fan Feng, Gao Chaosong, Hadi Hassan, Hou Yongzhen, Somnath Kar, Li Mingze, Li Shuang, Li Xinglong, Liu Donghai, Mao Yaxian, Prabhakar Palni, Pei Hua, Peng Xinye, Ren Xiaowen, Tang Siyu, Wang Mengliang, Wang Yubiao, Xu Ran, Yang Ping, Yang Hongyan, Yin Zhongbao, Zhang Biao, Zhang Haitao, Zhang Liuyao, Zhang Maolin, Zhang Mingyu, Zhang Xiaoming, Zhang Yonghong, Zhang Zhen, Zhang Zuman, Zhou Daicui, Zhu Hongsheng, Zhu Jianhui, Zhu Xiangrong, Zhu Ya.

Awarded Members of the CCNU LHCb Team (in alphabetical order):
Deng Jianqiao, Biplab Dey, Gao Yang, Gao Yuxi, Kunal Garg, Han Qundong, Hou Ruiwen, Hu Wenhua, Li Kechen, Li Yanru, Li Shiyang, Liu Weijie, Maitreyee Mukherjee, Wang Ganrong, Wang Xiao, Wang Yilong, Wu Jie, Xiao Dong, Xie Yuehong, Xu Menglin, Yin Hang, Yu Jiesheng, Zhang Dongliang, Zhou Xiaokang, Zhu Xiaoyu.

Group photo of the CCNU ALICE team

Group photo of the CCNU LHCb team

Reference Information:
The Breakthrough Prize was established in 2012 to recognize the most impactful scientific work and to highlight the importance of fundamental research to humanity. For more information, please visit: https://breakthroughprize.org

2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics Laureates:
https://breakthroughprize.org/Laureates/1

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