天美视频

The Higgs, Dark Matter, and how the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics puts UP at the forefront of describing reality itself

 

In 2012, a team at the European Organization for Nuclear Research or CERN finally found the Higgs boson, one of the universe鈥檚 elementary particles. Dubbed 鈥榯he God particle鈥� (without much exaggeration) by journalists, the Higgs boson explains why objects in the universe have mass. This came 40 years after scientists like Peter Higgs deduced its existence from the so-called Standard Model of particle physics, which explains nature鈥檚 fundamental building blocks and the forces that govern them.

The discovery was celebrated the world over, with some comparing it to the discovery of DNA in biology. As the scientific world rejoiced, however, the Philippines remained on the outside. Having no affiliation with CERN at the time and with few experts in high energy particle physics anyway, the country could not help but look on as research on these fundamental particles took off and soared.

All of this makes the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics even sweeter. Unlike in 2012, the country is now at the heart of the action with Dr. Marvin Flores and his team of physicists from the 天美视频 (UP) cited as co-recipients. Flores joined hundreds of researchers from around the world who were awarded for analyzing the Higgs boson and otherwise exploring nature under the most extreme conditions as part of the CERN-ATLAS Collaboration.

The country has been an associate member of ATLAS since 2021 through the UP Diliman鈥檚 National Institute of Physics (UPD-NIP) 鈥� the first in Southeast Asia to achieve this feat. This affiliation allows our physicists to be at the cutting edge of particle physics work through data from the world鈥檚 most powerful particle accelerator: the 27-kilometer Large Hadron Collider or LHC.

Through ATLAS, UP鈥檚 physicists can now play a major role in the discovery of new kinds of physics beyond the Standard Model like dark matter or dark energy. Getting here from 2012, however, took a great deal of work and Flores鈥� fateful choice to step into the unknown.

 

On the Map

 

Around half a decade ago, Flores hit a crossroads in his life and career. He had been working on quantum mechanics under Dr. Eric Galapon when he got the rare chance to leave his mark on Philippine physics, but only if he changed fields. At the time, another senior colleague, Dr. Wilson Garcia had begun stressing the importance of creating a Nuclear and Particle Physics Group at the Institute. And it was Flores who answered that call.

鈥淚 thought if I wanted to get tenured here, it should be (an area) that isn鈥檛 currently being done at the Institute,鈥� he said. With no children of his own back then to complicate his relocation, Flores agreed to change his focus to particle physics and took postdoctoral studies at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, which happened to already have an existing ATLAS group.

For context, ATLAS refers to both a CERN collaboration involving 40 countries and 180 institutions around the world, and the massive detector they work with: a 44-meter long and 25-meter in diameter colossus. The giant detector works like a camera, recording the high-energy collisions of protons done at the LHC. These protons are shot at and collided against each other using magnets to propel them to near-light speed. Scientists study the debris of these collisions to find fundamental building blocks of matter like the Higgs boson and, hopefully, other phenomena that improve our understanding of reality itself.

The first part of Flores鈥� postdoc stint under Witwatersrand鈥檚 Dr. Deepak Kar consisted of particle physics unconnected to ATLAS. However, when he realized that there was a chance to become an ATLAS author and that UP would support him in this endeavor, he pursued it vigorously. Thus, with Kar vouching for him, Flores embarked on a challenge every aspiring member needs to overcome: the ATLAS Qualification Task.

鈥淪o, there is a list of open problems within ATLAS and they leave these problems for incoming members who want to be part of the ATLAS author list,鈥� Flores explained. All ATLAS aspirants pick one of these problems according to their expertise and are given a year to solve it. 鈥淚 remember I was doing it during the pandemic year, around February or March 2020,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou have to give updates every week, since your supervisors check in on you and ask: how are you doing with the task?鈥�

With his own task solved, the day the Philippines officially became part of ATLAS (as an associate member under the South Africa cluster) is burned into Flores鈥� memory. 鈥淭hat is one of my proudest moments,鈥� Flores said of the day the country finally got shaded blue as a member in 2021 on ATLAS鈥� interactive map. 鈥淚 kept refreshing my browser and cheering: come on, Philippines!鈥� he recalled. 鈥淚n fact I have a screenshot of that moment, and the paper that finally includes the Philippines and my name. I am so proud of them.鈥�

 

 

 

Dark Jets

 

So, what does an ATLAS contributor do anyway? In Flores鈥� case, working at ATLAS means working with data produced from the LHC to create simulations that guide both theory and experiment. This area is called 鈥榩henomenology鈥�, and it provides scientists practical means to find objects that theory says should exist but have yet to be found 鈥� much like the Higgs boson before 2012.

鈥淚t鈥檚 like we鈥檙e in-between the hardcore theorists and the hardcore experimentalists handling the machines,鈥� Flores said. Phenomenologists like him take the equations made by theorists and make concrete predictions that the ATLAS team members can test.

鈥淎lso, when we have experimental results, we ask: what does that mean for a theory?鈥� he added. 鈥淎nd how might it change that theory?鈥�

While not all of his students currently work on ATLAS problems, many are training, like him, to explore the universe鈥檚 big 鈥榳hat-ifs鈥�. Take for example dark matter, which the Standard Model currently cannot account for.

The way galaxies rotate and gravity behaves in empty space suggests to physicists that there is more matter in the universe than we can see. One of Flores鈥� students, Angelica Ayalin who will take her PhD at the University of Manchester took a shot at finding a way to detect this heretofore unseen 鈥榙ark matter鈥� through her MS thesis.

Put simply, when protons collide within the LHC, it is actually the smaller elementary particles inside them like quarks that smash together. While scientists cannot detect these particles directly, they can infer them from the high energy cones or 鈥渏ets鈥� that form as a consequence of them flying apart at high speeds. From these studies, Flores said some scientists have dismissed notable physics theories like Supersymmetry because the high energy signatures produced by its hypothesized 鈥渟uper particles鈥� 鈥� things that exist parallel to but outside the Standard Model 鈥� have not been found.

What Flores and Ayalin did was to simulate one of these hypothetical entities, the so-called 鈥渄ark jets鈥�, which are similar to typical jets but may have more subtle signatures, and how they might blend into the background noise that ATLAS is designed to exclude. 鈥淲hat if dark matter is hiding inside these jets that we can鈥檛 see? We produce around 100 gigabytes of data per second but ATLAS makes triggered cuts to these so we cannot save it all.鈥�

鈥淭he point of Angelica鈥檚 work is: how can we tweak these specific triggers so that we can better detect these dark jet signatures in the data. Dark matter may be right there, we just can鈥檛 see it,鈥� he said. 鈥淏asically it boils down to finding clever ways to hunt for particles that haven鈥檛 been tried before.鈥�

 

ATLAS Philippines

 

While the study of particle physics in UP has changed drastically since Flores first dared to do the ATLAS Qualification Task in 2020, Flores鈥� own life has changed almost as much. Now a family man (with a baby named Atlas to boot) and 15 graduate and undergraduate students testing their phenomenological chops under his guidance, Flores鈥� goals to build on this success have also become more ambitious. The next step, he said, with the help of now-NIP Director Garcia, is to become a full-blown ATLAS member and help create the ATLAS Philippine Cluster.

鈥淥ur dream is that when you look at the (ATLAS) map and zoom in, it won鈥檛 just be Metro Manila and the NIP that you will see there,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e would like to change that.鈥�

Unlike the Philippines, many other countries in the ATLAS map like South Africa or Japan contain multiple institutions and authors doing ATLAS-related work. 鈥淭hese countries have a much greater presence in the collaboration,鈥� Flores explained. 鈥淎s opposed to us, where it鈥檚 only me and my 15 students.鈥�

 

鈥淲hat we want is something like a local Davos Forum, but for physics,鈥� Garcia added. So far, there are eight other institutions from Luzon to Mindanao who the NIP are talking to to join. 鈥淲e need people in high energy physics. For those without graduate programs, we want to invite them to UPD. We don鈥檛 want them to be afraid of Diliman because we want all of us to rise together. We are a National Institute and our mandate is to serve you.鈥�

For Flores, however, while such a local cluster would be its own reward, he also hopes these recent wins spur interest in something most universities in the country undervalue 鈥� fundamental research without the pressure of immediate profit or application.

 

 

 

鈥淚t鈥檚 a noble goal to try to create something that serves society, right?鈥� he said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 what engineers do. But as physicists, we should not stop just because we can鈥檛 see a practical purpose. That鈥檚 not the point. Imagine, a member of (English) parliament asked Michael Faraday: what is the purpose of electricity? Of course that鈥檚 a ridiculous question to ask today, but back then people did not see it. If it were just for practicality, then he should have just studied candles or the steam engine.鈥�

鈥淭he point is, we don鈥檛 know if the fundamental stuff we study now will power things in the future. The people who first studied electrons were not thinking about electronics. Who knows, maybe a hundred years from now, we will all be talking about Higgs-onics?鈥�

Learn more about ATLAS and view the interactive map including the Philippines here:

Want to be part of the next exciting breakthroughs in physics? Learn how to become a graduate student at the Institute here: