Francis Halzen was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for his work on a project at the South Pole that has helped discover high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said. Mr. Halzen is a physics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was born in 1944 in Tienen, Belgium. The Nobel Committee praised Mr. Halzen's “vision and scientific leadership” at the Ice Cube Neutrino Observatory, a research project at the South Pole that he directs.
The project — which the committee said involves “a cubic kilometer of ice that is equipped with light sensors” — was designed to capture neutrinos, bountiful but elusive subatomic particles that could give astronomers a new look at the universe. Mr. Halzen first presented his vision for capturing neutrinos at the South Pole in 1988, the committee said in a statement, and Ice Cube was finished in 2011. Researchers soon discovered the first high-energy neutrinos and, a few years later, could publish their discovery of neutrinos that must originate far outside our solar system. Mark Pearce, the chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said in the statement that Mr. Halzen had “provided us with a fantastic instrument” and that his “tenacity and scientific vision has paved the way for a new kind of astronomy. Mr. Halzen called the award “a great surprise.” Addressing the news conference in Stockholm by phone from Italy, he emphasized that his work was the result of a “large collaboration” with other researchers.
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