| J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics | |
|---|---|
| Awarded for | outstanding achievement inparticle theory |
| Country | United States |
| Presented by | American Physical Society |
| Reward | US$10,000 |
| First award | 1985 |
| Website | www |
TheJ. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics, also commonly referred to as just theSakurai Prize, is a prize awarded by theAmerican Physical Society. It is presented annually at the Society's April meeting and honors "outstanding achievement inparticle theory".[1]
The award was established in November 1984 with an endowment fund provided by the family and friends of physicistJun John Sakurai,[2] who had died in October 1982 during a visit toCERN.[3] Currently, the prize consists of a US$10,000 cash award, an allowance for the recipient to travel to the ceremony, and a certificate citing their contributions.[1] From its inaugural edition until 2008, the prize's cash award was $5,000.[4]
The Sakurai Prize is administered by the Society's Division of Particles and Fields,[5] and winners are chosen by a selection committee.[1] The prize may be shared by multiple people.[1] The inaugural recipients,Toshihide Maskawa andMakoto Kobayashi, were awarded the prize in 1985 for their work on theelectroweak interaction.[6] The first woman to receive the Sakurai Prize wasMary K. Gaillard in 1993.[7]
| Year | Image | Recipients | Rationale |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1985 |  | Toshihide Maskawa | "For their contributions to the theory ofelectroweak interactions through their general formulation offermion mass matrix and their prescient inference of the existence of more than fourflavors ofquarks." |
 | Makoto Kobayashi | ||
| 1986 |  | David Gross | "For their analyses of nonabeliangauge theories at short distances, and the implications of these insights for the understanding of thestrong interaction between quarks." |
| – | H. David Politzer | ||
.jpg) | Frank Wilczek | ||
| 1987 | .jpg) | Luciano Maiani | "For their work on theweak interactions ofcharmed particles, a crucial step in the development of the modern theory of thefundamental interactions." |
_-_Philippe_Binant_Archives_(3x4_cropped).jpg) | John Iliopoulos | ||
| 1988 | – | Stephen L. Adler | For his work in elucidating the consequences ofchiral symmetry through sum rules and low energy theorems." |
| 1989 |  | Nicola Cabibbo | "For his outstanding contribution in elucidating the structure of the hadronic weak current." |
| 1990 | – | Toichiro Kinoshita | "For his theoretical contributions toprecision tests of quantum electrodynamics and the electroweak theory, especially his pioneering work on the computation of the leptonanomalous magnetic moments." |
| 1991 | .jpg) | Vladimir N. Gribov | "For his early pioneering work on the high energy behavior ofquantum field theories and his elucidating studies of the global structure of non-abelian gauge theories." |
| 1992 | – | Lincoln Wolfenstein | "For his many contributions to the theory of weak interactions, particularlyCP violation and the properties ofneutrinos." |
| 1993 |  | Mary K. Gaillard | "For contributions to particle physics phenomenology and theory, and in particular for her work withBen Lee and others applyingQCD toK meson mixing and decays and to the bound states of charmed quarks." |
| 1994 | .jpg) | Yoichiro Nambu | "For his many fundamental contributions to field theory and particle physics, including the understanding of thepion as the signaler ofspontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry." |
| 1995 | – | Howard Georgi | "For his pioneering contributions toward theunification of strong and electroweak interactions, and for his application ofquantum chromodynamics to the properties and interactions ofhadrons." |
| 1996 |  | William Allan Bardeen | "For fundamental insights into the structure and meaning of theaxial anomaly and for contributions to the understanding of perturbative quantum chromodynamics." |
| 1997 |  | Thomas Appelquist | "For his pioneering work oncharmonium and on the de-coupling of heavy particles." |
| 1998 |  | Leonard Susskind | "For his pioneering contributions to hadronic string models,lattice gauge theories, quantum chromodynamics, anddynamical symmetry breaking." |
| 1999 |  | Mikhail Shifman | "For fundamental contributions to the understanding of non-perturbative QCD, non-leptonic weak decays, and the analytic properties ofsupersymmetric gauge theories." |
| – | Arkady Vainshtein | ||
| – | Valentin Ivanovich Zakharov [ru;de] | ||
| 2000 |  | Curtis G. Callan | "For his classic formulation of therenormalization group, his contributions toinstanton physics and to the theory ofmonopoles andstrings." |
| 2001 |  | Nathan Isgur | "For the construction of theheavy quark mass expansion and the discovery of the heavy quark symmetry in quantum chromodynamics, which led to a quantitative theory of the decays ofc andb flavored hadrons." |
| – | Mikhail Voloshin | ||
| – | Mark Wise | ||
| 2002 | – | Alberto Sirlin | "For their pioneering work onradiative corrections, which made precision electroweak studies a powerful method of probing theStandard Model and searching for new physics." |
| – | William J. Marciano | ||
| 2003 | – | Alfred Mueller | "For developing concepts and techniques in QCD, such asinfrared safety and factorization in hard processes, which permitted precise quantitative predictions and experimental tests, and thereby helped to establish QCD as the theory of the strong interactions." |
| – | George Sterman | ||
| 2004 | – | Ikaros I. Bigi | "For pioneering theoretical insights that pointed the way to the very fruitful experimental study of CP violation in B decays, and for continuing contributions to the fields of CP and heavy flavor physics." |
.jpg) | Anthony Sanda | ||
| 2005 | – | Susumu Okubo | "For groundbreaking investigations into the pattern of hadronic masses and decay rates, which provided essential clues into the development of the quark model, and for demonstrating that CP violation permits partial decay rate asymmetries." |
| 2006 | – | Savas Dimopoulos | "For his creative ideas on dynamical symmetry breaking,supersymmetry, andextra spatial dimensions, which have shaped theoretical research on TeV-scale physics, thereby inspiring a wide range of experiments." |
| 2007 | – | Stanley Brodsky | "For applications of perturbative quantum field theory to critical questions of elementary particle physics, in particular, to the analysis of hard exclusive strong interaction processes." |
| 2008 | – | Alexei Smirnov | "For pioneering and influential work on the enhancement ofneutrino oscillations in matter, which is essential to a quantitative understanding of thesolar neutrino flux." |
| – | Stanislav Mikheyev | ||
| 2009 | – | Davison E. Soper | "For work in perturbative quantum chromodynamics, including applications to problems pivotal to the interpretation of high energy particle collisions." |
| – | John C. Collins | ||
.jpg) | R. Keith Ellis | ||
| 2010 | .jpg) | Gerald S. Guralnik | "For elucidation of the properties of spontaneous symmetry breaking in four-dimensional relativistic gauge theory and of themechanism for the consistent generation ofvector boson masses." |
.jpg) | Carl R. Hagen | ||
| – | T. W. B. Kibble | ||
.jpg) | Robert Brout | ||
.jpg) | Francois Englert | ||
.jpg) | Peter Higgs | ||
| 2011 | .jpg) | Chris Quigg | "For their work, separately and collectively, to chart a course of the exploration of TeV scale physics using multi-TeVhadron colliders." |
| – | Estia Eichten | ||
| – | Ian Hinchliffe | ||
 | Kenneth Lane | ||
| 2012 | .jpg) | Guido Altarelli | "For key ideas leading to the detailed confirmation of the Standard Model of particle physics, enabling high energy experiments to extract precise information about Quantum Chromodynamics, electroweak interactions and possible new physics." |
| – | Torbjörn Sjöstrand | ||
| – | Bryan Webber | ||
| 2013 |  | Helen Quinn | "Fortheir proposal of the elegant mechanism to resolve the famous problem of strong-CP violation which, in turn, led to the invention ofaxions, a subject of intense experimental and theoretical investigation for more than three decades." |
| – | Roberto Peccei | ||
| 2014 | .jpg) | Zvi Bern | "For pathbreaking contributions to the calculation of perturbative scattering amplitudes, which led to a deeper understanding of quantum field theory and to powerful new tools for computing QCD processes." |
| – | Lance J. Dixon | ||
| – | David A. Kosower [de] | ||
| 2015 | .jpg) | George Zweig | "For his independent proposal that hadrons are composed of fractionally charged fundamental constituents, called quarks or aces, and for developing its revolutionary implications for hadron masses and properties." |
| 2016 | – | G. Peter Lepage | "For inventive applications of quantum field theory to particle physics, particularly in establishing the theory of hadronic exclusive processes, developing nonrelativisticeffective field theories, and determining standard-model parameters withlattice gauge theory." |
| 2017 |  | Gordon L. Kane | "For instrumental contributions to the theory of the properties, reactions, and signatures of theHiggs boson." |
| – | Howard E. Haber | ||
| – | Jack F. Gunion | ||
.jpg) | Sally Dawson | ||
| 2018 | – | Ann Nelson | "For groundbreaking explorations of physicsbeyond the Standard Model of particle physics, including their seminal joint work on dynamical super-symmetry breaking, and for their innovative contributions to a broad range of topics, including new models of electroweak symmetry breaking,baryogenesis, and solutions to thestrong charge parity problem." |
| – | Michael Dine | ||
| 2019 |  | Lisa Randall | "For creative contributions to physics beyond the Standard Model, in particular the discovery that warped extra dimensions of space can solve thehierarchy puzzle, which has had a tremendous impact on searches at theLarge Hadron Collider." |
.JPG) | Raman Sundrum | ||
| 2020 | .jpg) | Pierre Sikivie | "For seminal work recognizing the potential visibility of the invisible axion, devising novel methods to detect it, and for theoretical investigations of its cosmological implications." |
| 2021 | – | Vernon Barger | "For pioneering work in collider physics contributing to the discovery and characterization of theW boson,top quark, and Higgs boson, and for the development of incisive strategies to test theoretical ideas with experiments." |
| 2022 | .jpg) | Nima Arkani-Hamed | "For the development of transformative new frameworks for physics beyond the standard model with novel experimental signatures, including work on large extra dimensions, thelittle Higgs, and more generally for new ideas connected to the origin of the electroweak scale." |
| 2023 | – | Heinrich Leutwyler | "For fundamental contributions to the effective field theory of pions at low energies, and for proposing that thegluon is acolor octet." |
| 2024 | .jpg) | Andrzej Buras | "For exceptional contributions to quark-flavor physics, in particular, developing and carrying out calculations of higher-order QCD effects to electroweak transitions, as well as for drawing phenomenological connections between kaons,D mesons, andB mesons." |
| 2025 | – | Elizabeth E. Jenkins | "For outstanding contributions to the physics ofbaryons, including deriving many physical properties ofnucleons andhyperons in the large number of colors limit of quantum chromodynamics and deriving therenormalization group evolution of the standard model effective field theory at one loop." |
| – | Aneesh V. Manohar | ||
| 2026 | - | John F. Donoghue | "For original and lasting contributions to the development of effective field theories, including work on gravity as an effective quantum field theory, and important contributions to chiral perturbation theory." |