The Buchalter Cosmology Prize is pleased to announce the 2015 winners. The full press release can be found below.

Submissions for the 2016 Buchalter Cosmology Prize are currently being accepted. Winner announcements will be made in January 2017 and posted on this page.

PRESS RELEASES

Annual Buchalter Cosmology Prize Announces 2015 Winners

Kissimmee, FL – January 6, 2016 (9:20 AM EST) – The winners of the 2015 Buchalter Cosmology Prize were announced today at the 227th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Kissimmee, Florida. The annual prize, created by Dr. Ari Buchalter in 2014, seeks to reward new ideas or discoveries that have the potential to produce a breakthrough advance in our understanding of the origin, structure, and evolution of the universe.

The $10,000 First Prize was awarded to Dr. Julian Barbour of the University of Oxford, Dr. Tim Koslowski of the University of New Brunswick, and Dr. Flavio Mercati of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, for their work entitled "Identification of a gravitational arrow of time" published in Physical Review Letters and recognized by the judging panel as “an insightful step towards showing that an arrow of time is a natural expectation in cosmology, rather than a feature that requires significant fine-tuning as suggested by current theories.”

The $5,000 Second Prize was awarded to Dr. Nemanja Kaloper of the University of California, Davis, and Dr. Antonio Padilla of the University of Nottingham, for their work entitled “Sequestering the Standard Model Vacuum Energy” published in Physical Review Letters and recognized by the judging panel as “a novel scheme to tame the gravitational effect of the cosmological constant via a reformulation of Einstein's equations of General Relativity, predicting a finite Universe that will collapse in the future, and in which cosmic acceleration is a transient phenomenon.”

The $2,500 Third Prize was awarded to Dr. Niayesh Afshordi of the University of Waterloo and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, and Dr. Elliot Nelson of Pennsylvania State University and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, for their work entitled “Cosmological Non-Constant Problem: Cosmological bounds on TeV-scale physics and beyond” recognized by the judging panel as “an intriguing proposition that the Planck scale of quantum gravity may soon be accessible by particle accelerators, based on the expected white noise fluctuations in the cosmological constant, which might not be constant at all but vary widely in space.”

Dr. Buchalter, a former astrophysicist turned entrepreneur, was inspired to create the prize basedon his own research and experience in cosmology, and the belief that fundamental breakthroughs in cosmology still lie ahead, but may require altering, challenging, or even breaking some currently-accepted paradigms. “The 2015 prize winners represent the kind of innovative thinking that can significantly advance our understanding of the universe,” said Dr. Buchalter.

The prestigious judging panel for the prize is comprised of leading theoretical physicists noted for their work in cosmology, including Dr. Sean Carroll of the California Institute of Technology, Dr. Robert Caldwell of Dartmouth College, and Dr. Joao Magueijo of Imperial College London.

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Published: January 6, 2016, 2:35 pm