Francis Halzen wins 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics for IceCube neutrino work

Stockholm,
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced on Tuesday that the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Francis Halzen for decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos from astrophysical sources.
Mark Pearce, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said in a news release: “Francis Halzen has led an international team of researchers and engineers that has given us a remarkable instrument. His perseverance and scientific vision have paved the way for a new kind of astronomy.”
Halzen, an 82-year-old Belgian-born scientist, is the principal investigator of IceCube and a Vilas Research Professor and Gregory Breit Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He studies problems spanning the particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology communities. In 1987, he began work on the AMANDA experiment, a first-generation neutrino telescope at the South Pole that served as a proof of concept for IceCube. He later realized that the ice at the South Pole could be used to track particles called neutrinos. Neutrinos are everywhere, but they rarely reveal themselves, passing through the entire Earth and our bodies without our noticing.
IceCube is a cubic kilometer of ice fitted with light sensors. Using it, researchers can capture neutrinos produced by extremely energetic processes in the distant universe. Halzen has also served on advisory committees for the SNO, Telescope Array and Auger upgrade experiments, the Max Planck Institutes in Heidelberg and Munich, the University of Tokyo’s ICRR, the U.S. Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel, and Europe’s ApPEC particle astrophysics advisory panel.
This year’s prize amount is 12 million Swedish kronor (about $1.2 million), whether awarded to an individual, a small group of laureates or an organization. Last year, three scientists won the physics prize for research on quantum tunneling, the strange behavior of subatomic particles, which enabled extremely sensitive measurements such as those in MRI machines and laid the groundwork for better cell phones and faster computers.
The 2026 Nobel announcements began on Monday, when the medicine prize went to three scientists whose work produced a tool that uses light to help understand how the brain works. The chemistry prize will be announced on Wednesday and literature on Thursday. The peace prize follows on Friday, and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences on Monday.