Today, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics, awarded to Prof. Francis Halzen, Gregory Breit Professor and Vilas Research Professor at the University of Wisconsin\u2013Madison and Director of the university’s Institute for Elementary Particle Physics Research, for his decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and for the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin [1]. Among IceCube’s most impactful results are the first observation of neutrinos of extragalactic origin and the detection of extremely energetic neutrinos, with energies on the order of petaelectronvolts (PeV), far exceeding the energies reached by human-made particle accelerators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over many years, Prof. Halzen has maintained numerous interactions with faculty members of our Institute of Physics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first of these interactions was Prof. Maria Beatriz Gay Ducati’s scientific collaboration with Prof. Halzen in the early 1990s [2], a period of close collaboration that certainly deserves an account of its own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prof. Halzen had a major influence on the scientific career of Prof. Emerson Luna, back when Luna was still an undergraduate student. As he was finishing his undergraduate studies at UNICAMP, Prof. Luna strongly identified with experimental high-energy physics. However, his participation in the fourth Gleb Wataghin School on High Energy Phenomenology, in 1996, where Prof. Halzen taught a short course on the physics of weak interactions [3], opened up new perspectives. Clear, efficient, and highly instructive, the course made a strong impression on Prof. Luna, leading him to consider a career in theoretical physics for his master’s degree. This led him to join the graduate program at the Institute for Theoretical Physics (IFT-UNESP) to pursue field theory, and he is now a professor at our Institute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In neutrino physics, Prof. Magno Machado works directly on phenomenology related to neutrino astronomy, in which the detection of ultra-high-energy neutrinos can help describe the nonlinear dynamics of Quantum Chromodynamics [4]. This topic was also featured in a 2018 episode of Fronteiras da Ci\u00eancia [5] that discusses several aspects of neutrino physics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the Lepton-Photon 2025 conference in Madison, Prof. Gustavo Gil attended the meetings of the International Committee for Future Accelerators (ICFA), of which he was a member from 2023 to 2025, and had the opportunity to discuss current topics in physics with Prof. Halzen. They also shared stories from their time in Belgium, since both have ties to Louvain: Prof. Halzen worked at the Universit\u00e9 catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain) before moving to the United States, and Prof. Gustavo Gil did his postdoctoral research at the same institution years later. As a result of this interaction, we had the pleasure of welcoming Prof. Halzen as a speaker at the III Workshop Riograndense de F\u00edsica de Altas Energias [6].<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is these scientific interactions, built over the years, that enrich our careers and open new paths for the lines of research we pursue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prof. Gustavo Gil da Silveira, on behalf of the colleagues at IF.<\/p>\n\n\n\n[1] https:\/\/www.kva.se\/en\/news\/the-nobel-prize-in-physics-2026\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n[2] https:\/\/inspirehep.net\/literature\/353837, https:\/\/inspirehep.net\/literature\/377639, https:\/\/inspirehep.net\/literature\/334466<\/p>\n\n\n\n[3] https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/hep-ph\/9701228<\/p>\n\n\n\n[4] https:\/\/inspirehep.net\/literature\/633795<\/p>\n\n\n\n[5] https:\/\/www.ufrgs.br\/frontdaciencia\/2018\/08\/27\/frontdaciencia-t09e26-astronomia-de-neutrinos\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n[6] https:\/\/indico.global\/e\/3heprs2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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