Francis Halzen wins Nobel Physics Prize for Antarctic 'ghost particle' hunt

By Niklas Pollard, Johan Ahlander and Simon Johnson

STOCKHOLM, Oct 6 (Reuters) - The ‌Belgian-American Francis Halzen won the ​2026 Nobel Prize in ​Physics for his work creating an observatory to detect high-energy neutrinos - some of the universe's most elusive subatomic particles - and try to establish how they are made.

Halzen, 82, realised that pristine ice at the South Pole could be used to track such neutrinos, sometimes known as "ghost particles" for the way they pass through the ‌Earth and our bodies without a trace, only interacting with matter extremely rarely.

"The messengers bring information from the cosmos," Eva Olsson, of the Royal ⁠Swedish Academy of Sciences, told a press conference. "They open the door to distant galaxies and tell us about the processes of exploding stars."

HALZEN HAILED FOR DETECTING 'MESSENGERS FROM THE COSMOS'

The interactions registered by the IceCube observatory in Antarctica provide information about ‌how high-energy neutrinos are created and may even reveal ‌previously unknown phenomena, the Academy said.

In 2014, the US-based Smithsonian magazine dubbed Halzen "Neutrino Man" when giving him one of its Ingenuity Awards, acclaiming him for an "amazing experiment (that) heralds the beginning of a new era in astronomy".

It even published a comic illustrating his life: "How One Physicist’s Pursuit of the Cosmos Took Off in Antarctica".

The particle detector comprises more than 5,000 sensors set ​in a cubic kilometre of Antarctic ice, which extends to a depth of 2,500 metres below the surface near the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.

The observatory awaits blips from the nearly massless high-energy neutrinos, which unlike other particles do not lose energy or change direction, in the hope of tracing their paths back to exploding stars, gamma-ray bursts, and cataclysmic phenomena involving black ⁠holes and neutron stars. It can expect to register about one per day.

Halzen, a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the United States, first presented his idea for capturing neutrino traces at the South Pole in 1988, but the project was ​not completed until 2011.

"I have to emphasise how lucky I was because, when we started this project, everybody realised this was maybe a good idea, but very few thought it would work, including myself," Halzen told the press conference by telephone.

Neutrinos are electrically neutral, undisturbed by any magnetic ​field, which means that, in contrast to electromagnetic waves such as visible light, the direction from which they ‌arrive points directly back to their source.

FRUITS OF HALZEN'S RESEARCH YET TO COME

The observatory has been able to determine that high-energy neutrinos originate within but also far outside our own galaxy, setting in motion an interstellar quest to find the objects and processes that create them.

Through the long winter at ⁠the South Pole, when bringing anything in or out is difficult as temperatures below -50°C (-58°F) preclude even aircraft landing, a skeleton crew of "winterovers" have to maintain the observatory.

The station, home to many other activities, can house as many as 150 people and has an industrial kitchen, dining room, gym and even a greenhouse. Six days ago it celebrated the sun's return above the horizon aftre six months of night with a six-hole ice-golf tournament.

Halzen ⁠said the main fruits of his work were not yet apparent and that it was too early to say exactly what it could reveal about the universe.

"The real excitement is that I cannot answer that question ​yet," he said. "This is just an introduction to the science, the astronomy is still to come."

WINNERS FROM EINSTEIN TO BOHR AND THE CURIES

Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever congratulated Halzen on the recognition of "a life dedicated to unraveling the greatest secrets of the cosmos through its most minuscule manifestations".

The Nobel physics laureate receives an award of 12 million Swedish crowns ($1.2 million).

The Nobel Prizes were established under the will of Swedish inventor and entrepreneur ‌Alfred Nobel, whose fortune was built in part on the invention of dynamite.

Physics was prominent in Nobel's will and the prize remains one of the discipline's highest distinctions. Over the decades, it has recognised discoveries that have fundamentally reshaped humanity's understanding of the universe.

Among past laureates are some ‌of the most celebrated figures in science, including Albert Einstein, Marie and Pierre Curie, Max Planck and Niels Bohr, whose work helped establish the foundations of modern physics.

Nobel medals are presented by Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf ⁠at a ceremony in Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's ‌death, which is followed by a banquet.

The Peace Prize, the ​only Nobel not presented in Sweden, is awarded separately in Oslo.

($1 = 10.0329 Swedish crowns)

(Reporting by Niklas Pollard, Marie Mannes and Johan Ahlander in Stockholm; additional reporting by Simon Johnson, Anna Ringstrom and Greta Rosen Fondahn in Stockholm, Inti Landauro and Charlotte Van Campenhout in Brussels, and Terje Solsvik in Oslo; Editing by Alex ‌Richardson and Kevin Liffey)

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