The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2026 physics prize to University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Francis Halzen for IceCube and the detection of high-energy cosmic neutrinos.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Tuesday awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics to Francis Halzen of the University of Wisconsin-Madison for decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin.
The prize citation says Halzen's idea was to use glacial ice at the South Pole to capture neutrinos, leading to IceCube, a cubic kilometre of instrumented ice with light sensors. The academy said the observatory can track neutrinos from extremely energetic processes in the distant universe.
Nobel Committee for Physics chair Mark Pearce said Halzen led an international team of researchers and engineers and that the work opened a new kind of astronomy. The prize amount is 12 million Swedish kronor, the academy said.
Halzen is the sole 2026 physics laureate. The award follows Monday's medicine prize, with chemistry, literature, peace and economics still to be announced.
The academy pointed readers to nobelprize.org and kva.se for further detail. No independent dispute of the award decision was reported in the official release.
People Sentiments Positive
- Mark Pearce said Halzen's tenacity and scientific vision paved the way for a new kind of astronomy.