Buchalter Cosmology Prize Explained

Buchalter Cosmology Prize
Awarded For:	ground-breaking work in cosmology with the potential to produce a breakthrough advance in our understanding of how the Universe works
Country:	United States
Presenter:	Ari Buchalter American Astronomical Society
Year:	2014

The Buchalter Cosmology Prize, established in 2014, is a prestigious annual prize bestowed by Dr. Ari Buchalter.^[1]

Every year, three Buchalter Prizes are awarded in recognition of ground-breaking work in cosmology with the potential to produce a breakthrough advance in our understanding of how the Universe works, particularly by substantially extending or challenging currently-accepted models. The first, second, and third prize come with a prize money of $10,000, $5,000, and $2,500 respectively. The winners are typically announced in the January meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), placing it de facto among the annual AAS prizes.^{[2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]}

Advisors and Judges

Submissions and nominations are overseen by a panel composed of the chairman Dr. Ari Buchalter, an advisory board composed of two senior physicists, and a Judging Panel composed of three senior physicists. The composition of advisory board and Judging Panel is changed periodically. Current members of the advisory board are David Helfand and Marc Kamionkowski, whereas current members of the Judging Panel are Claudia de Rham, Matthew Johnson, and Justin Khoury.^[9]

Vision and Mission

The prize was conceived by Dr. Ari Buchalter, a former astrophysicist turned entrepreneur who earned his PhD from Columbia University in 1999 working with David Helfand, on the premise that there are fundamental gaps in our understanding of cosmology, and that several currently-accepted paradigms might be incomplete or incorrect. The prize was created to support the development of new boundary-pushing ideas or discoveries that have the potential to produce a breakthrough advance beyond our present understanding of the Universe.^[10]

Recipients

• 2014
  • 1st prize: Marina Cortês and Lee Smolin,^{[11] [12]} for their work The Universe as a Process of Unique Events.^[13]
  • 2nd prize: Jonathan Kaufman, Brian Keating, and Brad Johnson,^[14] for their work Precision Tests of Parity Violation Over Cosmological Distances.^[15]
  • 3rd prize: Carroll Wainwright, Matthew Johnson, Hiranya Peiris, Anthony Aguirre, Luis Lehner, and Steven Liebling, for their work Simulating the Universe(s): from Cosmic Bubble Collisions to Cosmological Observables with Numerical Relativity.
• 2015
  • 1st prize: Julian Barbour, Tim Koslowski, and Flavio Mercati, for their work Identification of a gravitational arrow of time.
  • 2nd prize: Nemanja Kaloper and Antonio Padilla, for their work Sequestering the Standard Model Vacuum Energy.
  • 3rd prize: Niayesh Afshordi and Elliot Nelson, for their work Cosmological Non-Constant Problem: Cosmological bounds on TeV-scale physics and beyond.
• 2016
  • 1st prize: Nima Khosravi,^[16] for their work Ensemble Average Theory of Gravity.^[17]
  • 2nd prize: Elliot Nelson,^[18] for their work Quantum Decoherence During Inflation from Gravitational Nonlinearities.
  • 3rd prize: Cliff Burgess, Richard Holman, Gianmassimo Tasinato, and Matthew Williams,^[19] for their work EFT Beyond the Horizon: Stochastic Inflation and How Primordial Quantum Fluctuations Go Classical.
• 2017
  • 1st prize: Lasha Berezhiani and Justin Khoury,^[20] for their work Theory of Dark Matter Superfluidity.^[21]
  • 2nd prize: Steffen Gielen and Neil Turok, for their work Perfect Quantum Cosmological Bounce.
  • 3rd prize: Peter Adshead, Diego Blas, Cliff Burgess, Peter Hayman, and Subodh Patil, for their work Magnon Inflation: Slow Roll with Steep Potentials.
• 2018
  • 1st prize: José Ramón Espinosa, Davide Racco, and Antonio Riotto,^[22] for their work A Cosmological Signature of the Standard Model Higgs Vacuum Instability: Primordial Black Holes as Dark Matter.
  • 2nd prize: Douglas Edmonds, Duncan Farrah, Djordje Minic, Jack Ng, and Tatsu Takeuchi, for their work Modified Dark Matter: Relating Dark Energy, Dark Matter and Baryonic Matter.
  • 3rd prize: Jonathan Braden, Matthew Johnson, Hiranya Peiris, Andrew Pontzen, and Silke Weinfurtner, for their work A New Semiclassical Picture of Vacuum Decay.
• 2019
  • 1st prize: Jahed Abedi and Niayesh Afshordi,^{[23] [24]} for their work Echoes from the Abyss: A highly spinning black hole remnant for the binary neutron star merger GW170817.^[25]
  • 2nd prize: Eugenio Bianchi, Anuradha Gupta, Hal Haggard, and Bangalore Sathyaprakash,^{[26] [27]} for their work Quantum gravity and black hole spin in gravitational wave observations: a test of the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy^[28]
  • 3rd prize: Jose Beltrán Jiménez, Lavinia Heisenberg, and Tomi Koivisto,^[29] for their work The Geometrical Trinity of Gravity.^[30]
• 2020
  • 1st prize: Daniel Green and Rafael Porto,^{[31] [32]} for their work Signals of a Quantum Universe.^[33]
  • 2nd prize: Mikhail Ivanov, Marko Simonović, and Matias Zaldarriaga,^[34] for their work Cosmological parameters from the BOSS Galaxy Power Spectrum.^[35]
  • 3rd prize: Philip Mocz, Anastasia Fialkov, Mark Vogelsberger, Fernando Becerra, Mustafa Amin, Sownak Bose, Michael Boylan-Kolchin, Pierre-Henri Chavanis, Lars Hernquist, Lachlan Lancaster, Federico Marinacci, Victor Robles, and Jesús Zavala,^{[36] [37] [38]} for their work First star-forming structures in fuzzy cosmic filaments.^[39]
• 2021
  • 1st prize: Karsten Jedamzik and Levon Pogosian,^[40] for their work Relieving the Hubble tension with primordial magnetic fields.^[41]
  • 2nd prize: Azadeh Maleknejad,^[42] for their work SU(2) and its Axion in Cosmology: A common Origin for Inflation, Cold Sterile Neutrinos, and Baryogenesis.^[43]
  • 3rd prize: Sunny Vagnozzi, Luca Visinelli, Philippe Brax, Anne-Christine Davis, and Jeremy Sakstein,^{[44] [45] [46]} for their work Direct detection of dark energy: the XENON1T excess and future prospects.^[47]

Perimeter Institute

Since its inception, the prize has been highly dominated by Perimeter Institute, whose researchers and associates featured for six consecutive years among the prize winners between 2014 and 2019: given the nature of the prize, this is a reflection of the cutting-edge research conducted at the institute.^[48]

Notes and References

1. Web site: Buchalter Cosmology Prize . 2022-02-02.
2. Web site: AAS Announces 2016 Award Recipients . 2022-02-02.
3. Web site: AAS Announces Recipients of 2017 Prizes and Awards. 2022-02-02.
4. Web site: AAS Names Recipients of 2018 Awards and Prizes. 2022-02-02.
5. Web site: AAS Names Recipients of 2019 Awards & Honors. 2022-02-02.
6. Web site: AAS Names Recipients of 2020 Awards & Prizes. 2022-02-02.
7. Web site: AAS Names Recipients of 2021 Awards & Prizes. 2022-02-02.
8. Web site: AAS Names Recipients of 2022 Awards & Prizes. 2022-02-02.
9. Web site: Buchalter Cosmology Prize Advisors and Judges . 2022-02-02.
10. Web site: Buchalter Cosmology Prize Vision and Mission . 2022-02-02.
11. Web site: Paper on the nature of time wins new cosmology prize. 2022-02-04.
12. Web site: Time comes first: Cortês and Smolin win cosmology prize. 2022-02-04.
13. The universe as a process of unique events. 2014. 10.1103/PhysRevD.90.084007. 2022-02-04. Cortês. Marina. Smolin. Lee. Physical Review D. 90. 8. 084007. 1307.6167. 2014PhRvD..90h4007C. 118557476.
14. Web site: Cosmology Prize Recognizes 'Inventive' Proposed Test of Fundamental Physics. 2022-02-04.
15. Web site: Precision tests of parity violation over cosmological distances. 2022-02-04.
16. Web site: Dr. Nima Khosravi, 2016 Buchalter Cosmology Prize Winner. 7 January 2017. 2022-02-07.
17. Ensemble average theory of gravity. 2016. 10.1103/PhysRevD.94.124035. 2022-02-07. Khosravi. Nima. Physical Review D. 94. 12. 124035. 1606.01887. 2016PhRvD..94l4035K. 118661391.
18. Web site: Perimeter achieves double-hat-trick at Buchalter Cosmology Prize. 2022-03-02.
19. Web site: Swansea Theoretical Cosmologist wins International Prize. 2022-03-02.
20. Web site: Physicist theorizes that dark matter is a superfluid. 2022-02-07.
21. Theory of dark matter superfluidity. 2015. 10.1103/PhysRevD.92.103510. 2022-02-07. Berezhiani. Lasha. Khoury. Justin. Physical Review D. 92. 10. 103510. 1507.01019. 2015PhRvD..92j3510B. 118259480.
22. Web site: Perimeter researchers continue hot streak in Buchalter Cosmology Prize competition. 2022-03-02.
23. Web site: Jahed Abedi receives 2019 Buchalter Cosmology Prize. 2022-02-02.
24. Web site: Perimeter research recognized again by Buchalter Cosmology Prize. 2022-02-02.
25. Echoes from the abyss: a highly spinning black hole remnant for the binary neutron star merger GW170817. 2019. 10.1088/1475-7516/2019/11/010. 2022-02-02. Abedi. Jahed. Afshordi. Niayesh. Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. 2019. 11. 010. 1803.10454. 2019JCAP...11..010A. 118959613.
26. Web site: Penn State physicists earn second place in annual Buchalter Cosmology Prize. 2022-02-02.
27. Web site: Professor of Physics Hal Haggard and Colleagues Receive Buchalter Cosmology Prize for Black Hole Research. 2022-02-02.
28. Quantum gravity and black hole spin in gravitational wave observations: a test of the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy. 1812.05127v1. Bianchi. Eugenio. Gupta. Anuradha. Haggard. Hal M.. Sathyaprakash. B. S.. 2018. gr-qc .
29. Web site: Este investigador de la Universidad de Salamanca recibe el tercer Premio de Cosmología Buchalter. 2022-02-03.
30. The Geometrical Trinity of Gravity. 2019. 10.3390/universe5070173. free. Beltrán Jiménez. Jose. Heisenberg. Lavinia. Koivisto. Tomi. Universe. 5. 7. 173. 1903.06830. 2019Univ....5..173B.
31. Web site: American Astronomical Society Sends Signal of Excellence to UC San Diego Physicist. 2022-02-02.
32. Web site: Rafael Porto awarded Buchalter Cosmology Prize 2020. 2022-02-02.
33. Signals of a Quantum Universe. 2020. 10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.251302. 2022-02-02. Green. Daniel. Porto. Rafael A.. Physical Review Letters. 124. 25. 251302. 32639787. 2001.09149. 2020PhRvL.124y1302G. 210911591.
34. Web site: Natural Sciences Scholars and Alumni Win 2021 AAS Prizes. 13 January 2021. 2022-02-02.
35. Cosmological parameters from the BOSS galaxy power spectrum. 2020. 10.1088/1475-7516/2020/05/042. 2022-02-02. Ivanov. Mikhail M.. Simonović. Marko. Zaldarriaga. Matias. Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. 2020. 5. 042. 1909.05277. 2020JCAP...05..042I. 202565844.
36. Web site: Mark Vogelsberger wins 2020 Buchalter Cosmology Prize for simulating a "fuzzy" universe. 2022-02-02.
37. Web site: Philip Mocz and Lachlan Lancaster Receive a 2020 Buchalter Cosmology Prize. 2022-02-02.
38. Web site: Anastasia Fialkov (IoA & Kavli) and collaborators awarded the 2020 Buchalter Cosmology Prize for their work on Fuzzy Dark Matter. 12 January 2021. 2022-02-02.
39. First Star-Forming Structures in Fuzzy Cosmic Filaments. 2019. 10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.141301. 2022-02-02. Mocz. Philip. Fialkov. Anastasia. Vogelsberger. Mark. Becerra. Fernando. Amin. Mustafa A.. Bose. Sownak. Boylan-Kolchin. Michael. Chavanis. Pierre-Henri. Hernquist. Lars. Lancaster. Lachlan. Marinacci. Federico. Robles. Victor H.. Zavala. Jesús. Physical Review Letters. 123. 14. 141301. 31702225. 1910.01653. 2019PhRvL.123n1301M. 203734641.
40. Web site: SFU Physics Professor wins 2021 Buchalter Cosmology Prize. 2022-02-04.
41. Relieving the Hubble Tension with Primordial Magnetic Fields. 2020. 10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.181302. 2022-02-04. Jedamzik. Karsten. Pogosian. Levon. Physical Review Letters. 125. 18. 181302. 33196251. 2004.09487. 2020PhRvL.125r1302J. 215827935.
42. Web site: CERN fellow wins Buchalter Cosmology Prize. 2022-03-02.
43. SU(2) and its Axion in Cosmology: A common Origin for Inflation, Cold Sterile Neutrinos, and Baryogenesis. 2021. 10.1103/PhysRevD.104.083518. 2022-02-04. Maleknejad. Azadeh. Physical Review D. 104. 8. 083518. 2012.11516. 2021PhRvD.104h3518M. 229339639.
44. Web site: Dr. Sunny Vagnozzi and Prof. Anne-Christine Davis awarded the 2021 Buchalter Cosmology Prize. 2022-02-24.
45. Web site: Luca Visinelli Wins 2021 Buchalter Cosmology Prize with Dr. Sunny Vagnozzi etc.. 2022-02-24.
46. Web site: Professor Jeremy Sakstein Awarded Prestigious Cosmology Prize.. 2022-02-24.
47. Direct detection of dark energy: The XENON1T excess and future prospects. 2021. 10.1103/PhysRevD.104.063023. 2022-02-24. Vagnozzi. Sunny. Visinelli. Luca. Brax. Philippe. Davis. Anne-Christine. Sakstein. Jeremy. Physical Review D. 104. 6. 063023. 2103.15834. 2021PhRvD.104f3023V. 232417159.
48. Web site: At the frontier of theoretical physics. 9 July 2020. 2022-02-02.