The Buchalter Cosmology Prize is pleased to announce the 2025 winners. The full press release can be found below.
| Prize | Authors | Paper Title | arXiv Reference Number |
|---|---|---|---|
| First Prize | Dr. Christopher Cain, Dr. Matthew McQuinn, Dr. Evan Scannapieco, Dr. Anson D'Aloisio, Dr. Hy Trac | Kiloparsec-scale turbulence driven by reionization may grow intergalactic magnetic fields | arXiv:2504.21082 |
| Second Prize | Dr. Adam Smith, Dr. Maria Mylova, Dr. Philippe Brax, Dr. Carsten van de Bruck, Dr. Clifford Burgess, Dr. Anne-Christine Davis | A Minimal Axio-dilaton Dark Sector | arXiv:2410.11099 |
| Third Prize | Dr. Harsh Mehta, Dr. Suvodip Mukherjee | A Diffused Background from Axion-like Particles in the Microwave Sky | arxiv:2405.08879 |
Submissions for the 2026 Buchalter Cosmology Prize are currently being accepted. Winner announcements for the 2026 prize will be made in January 2027 and posted on this page.
PRESS RELEASES
Annual Buchalter Cosmology Prize Announces 2023 Winners
January 8, 2026 (8:00am MST) – The winners of the 2025 Buchalter Cosmology Prize were announced today at the 247th meeting of the American Astronomical Society. The Buchalter Cosmology 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. Christopher Cain of Arizona State University, Dr. Matthew McQuinn of the University of Washington, Dr. Evan Scannapieco of Arizona State University, Dr. Anson D'Aloisio of the University of California, Riverside, and Dr. Hy Trac of Carnegie Mellon University, for their work entitled “Kiloparsec-scale turbulence driven by reionization may grow intergalactic magnetic fields”, accepted for publication in Physical Review D and recognized by the judging panel as “a novel approach to produce non-primordial intergalactic magnetic fields, using high resolution radiation-hydrodynamics simulations to demonstrate that rapid ionization produces turbulence that the authors show might be sufficient to amplify intergalactic magnetic fields to levels matching observations of TeV blazars.”
The $5,000 Second Prize was awarded to Dr. Adam Smith of the University of Sheffield, Dr. Maria Mylova of the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Dr. Philippe Brax of Université Paris-Saclay, Dr. Carsten van de Bruck of the University of Sheffield, Dr. Clifford Burgess of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, McMaster University, and the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, and Dr. Anne-Christine Davis of the University of Cambridge, for their work entitled “A Minimal Axio-dilaton Dark Sector”, published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics and recognized by the judging panel as “a new and remarkable model of how two interacting fields—the axion and the dilaton—could constitute the entire dark sector of the Universe, providing a simple, common origin for dark matter and dark energy with distinctive observational signatures, which if found, would provide a testable alternative to the standard cosmological model.”
The $2,500 Third Prize was awarded to Dr. Harsh Mehta and Dr. Suvodip Mukherjee of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, for their work entitled “A Diffused Background from Axion-like Particles in the Microwave Sky”, published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics and recognized by the judging panel as “a creative idea for how a certain dark matter candidate – axion-like particles – could be detectable via a distinct polarized spectral distortion in the microwave sky that would correlate with large-scale structure and could be distinguished from other signals by its spectral and spatial characteristics.””
Dr. Buchalter, a former astrophysicist turned entrepreneur, was inspired to create the prize based on his own research and experience in cosmology, and the belief that fundamental breakthroughs in the field of cosmology may be near at hand, but will require new thinking and approaches that extend beyond current models and techniques. “The 2025 prize winners all stood out for exploring creative ideas with the potential to explain fundamental aspects of the Universe,” said Dr. Buchalter.
The rotating judging panel for the prize is comprised of leading theoretical physicists noted for their work in cosmology. The 2025 judges were Dr. Cora Dvorkin of Harvard University, Dr. Lam Hui of Columbia University, and Dr. Licia Verde of Universidad de Barcelona.
Contact:
info@buchaltercosmologyprize.org.