The 2026 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, known worldwide as the “Oscars of Science”, has been awarded to the three international Muon g-2 collaborations that, since the 1970s, have measured the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon. This prestigious recognition celebrates decades of outstanding scientific research carried out at CERN in Geneva, the Brookhaven National Laboratory and Fermilab in the United States.
The University of Pisa, together with the INFN Pisa Section, the Scuola Normale Superiore and the INO-CNR in Pisa, is part of the international collaboration that contributed to the Fermilab experiment, which produced the most precise measurement ever achieved of the muon’s anomalous magnetic moment. These particles, similar to electrons but much heavier, are used to test the Standard Model and to compare it with new possible theoretical interpretations.
The Fermilab Muon g-2 collaboration includes 176 scientists from 34 institutions across 7 countries, including Professor Simone Donati, researcher Anna Driutti, engineer Andrea Basti and postdoctoral researcher Emma Hess from the Department of Physics at the University of Pisa.
“This prize belongs above all to the undergraduate and PhD students who, over the years, have worked enthusiastically on the experiment — at the University of Pisa: Elia Bottalico, Lorenzo Cotrozzi, Maria Domenica Galati, Paolo Girotti and Riccardo Nunzio Pilato,” emphasises Professor Donati, who also coordinates the Summer School “Summer Students at Fermilab and Other US Laboratories” of the University of Pisa, which each year allows Master’s Degree students in Physics, Engineering and Computer Science to spend nine weeks working with a research group at the laboratory and gain first-hand experience in frontier research.
This recognition is also shared by Dr Anna Driutti, who has worked on the challenge of measuring the muon g-2 almost from the beginning, first as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Udine and later at the University of Kentucky, before joining the University of Pisa team in 2021, where she contributed to the landmark final measurement presented in June 2025.
