Physics

James P. Eisenstein

Affiliation at the time of the award:

Caltech, USA

Award citation:

“For advancing our understanding of the surprising properties of two-dimensional electron systems in strong magnetic fields”.

Prize share:

James P. Eisenstein

Jainendra K. Jain

Mordehai Heiblum

James P. Eisenstein (1952, USA) earned his AB degree from Oberlin College in 1974 and completed a Ph.D. in physics at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1980. After serving as an assistant professor at Williams College, he joined Bell Laboratories in 1983 as a member of the technical staff. In 1996, he accepted a faculty position at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and became the Frank J. Roshek Professor of Physics and Applied Physics in 2005. He retired as professor emeritus in 2018 and concluded his experimental research in 2021. Eisenstein has contributed to several National Research Council committees, including the Solid State Sciences Committee and the Board on Physics and Astronomy. He also served as associate editor for the Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physics from 2014 to 2017.

The three awardees have profoundly transformed our understanding of the fractional quantum Hall effect, (a Nobel prize-winning phenomenon) in which a thin layer of electrons in a magnetic field behaves as if the electrical current is carried by particles charged with a fraction of the electron charge.
A powerful and intuitively appealing way to understand these particles was developed by Dr. Jain, who introduced the concept of a composite fermion: a particle formed by binding an electron to a magnetic flux tube. The idea that large numbers of strongly interacting electrons behave as weakly interacting composite particles explains the intricate sequence of fractional quantum Hall states observed in the laboratory, now known as the Jain states. The composite fermion theory has provided quantitatively precise agreement with numerical studies, and it has predicted and explained experiments that find behavior reminiscent of a superconductor at special values (filling fraction 5/2) of the electron density.
Dr. Heiblum pioneered the exploration of these exotic particles in the laboratory. By developing ultra-high-purity materials and electron interferometry techniques, Heiblum’s group could provide concrete evidence for the fractional charge and verify fundamental predictions, including the anomalous statistics (intermediate between that of fermions and bosons). A milestone experiment was the observation of half-integer quantized thermal conductance at filling fraction 5/2, confirming the prediction that the corresponding composite fermions are Majorana fermions, and with potential implications for quantum computation.
Dr. Eisenstein co-discovered the fractional quantum Hall state at filling factor 5/2 and went on to explore exotic phases of two-dimensional electron systems. This includes an anisotropic state where the resistance probed along one direction is much larger than the resistance along the perpendicular direction, reminiscent of a liquid crystal. Eisenstein’s development of methods to separately contact individual electron layers enabled the study of the correlated motion of electron-hole pairs in the two layers, with the breakthrough observation of their Bose-Einstein condensation.
The award of the 2025 Wolf prize to these three physicists honors their extraordinary contributions to the exploration of quantum matter, with far-reaching impact on emerging quantum technologies.

Mordehai (Moty) Heiblum

Affiliation at the time of the award:

The Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel

Award citation:

“For advancing our understanding of the surprising properties of two-dimensional electron systems in strong magnetic fields”.

Prize share:

Mordehai Heiblum

Jainendra K. Jain

James P. Eisenstein

Mordehai (Moty) Heiblum (1947, Israel) is a physicist and electrical engineer, he graduated from the Technion (B.Sc., 1973) and Carnegie Mellon University (M.Sc., 1974) before earning his Ph.D. in 1978 at UC Berkeley. He began his career at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, where he worked for 12 years. In 1990, Heiblum returned to Israel to establish the Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Center for Submicron Research at the Weizmann Institute, where he has served as director since its inception. He also founded and directed the Department of Condensed Matter Physics and holds the Alex and Ida Sussman Professorial Chair of Submicron Studies.

The three awardees have profoundly transformed our understanding of the fractional quantum Hall effect, (a Nobel prize-winning phenomenon) in which a thin layer of electrons in a magnetic field behaves as if the electrical current is carried by particles charged with a fraction of the electron charge.
A powerful and intuitively appealing way to understand these particles was developed by Dr. Jain, who introduced the concept of a composite fermion: a particle formed by binding an electron to a magnetic flux tube. The idea that large numbers of strongly interacting electrons behave as weakly interacting composite particles explains the intricate sequence of fractional quantum Hall states observed in the laboratory, now known as the Jain states. The composite fermion theory has provided quantitatively precise agreement with numerical studies, and it has predicted and explained experiments that find behavior reminiscent of a superconductor at special values (filling fraction 5/2) of the electron density.
Dr. Heiblum pioneered the exploration of these exotic particles in the laboratory. By developing ultra-high-purity materials and electron interferometry techniques, Heiblum’s group could provide concrete evidence for the fractional charge and verify fundamental predictions, including the anomalous statistics (intermediate between that of fermions and bosons). A milestone experiment was the observation of half-integer quantized thermal conductance at filling fraction 5/2, confirming the prediction that the corresponding composite fermions are Majorana fermions, and with potential implications for quantum computation.
Dr. Eisenstein co-discovered the fractional quantum Hall state at filling factor 5/2 and went on to explore exotic phases of two-dimensional electron systems. This includes an anisotropic state where the resistance probed along one direction is much larger than the resistance along the perpendicular direction, reminiscent of a liquid crystal. Eisenstein’s development of methods to separately contact individual electron layers enabled the study of the correlated motion of electron-hole pairs in the two layers, with the breakthrough observation of their Bose-Einstein condensation.
The award of the 2025 Wolf prize to these three physicists honors their extraordinary contributions to the exploration of quantum matter, with far-reaching impact on emerging quantum technologies.

Jainendra K. Jain

Affiliation at the time of the award:

The Pennsylvania State University, USA

Award citation:

“For advancing our understanding of the surprising properties of two-dimensional electron systems in strong magnetic fields”.

Prize share:

Jainendra K. Jain

Mordehai Heiblum

James P. Eisenstein

Jainendra K. Jain (1960, India) completed his bachelor’s degree at Maharaja College, Jaipur, followed by a master’s degree in physics from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur. Jain earned his Ph.D. at Stony Brook University, where he worked under the guidance of Profs. Philip B. Allen and Steven Kivelson. After postdoctoral positions at the University of Maryland (1988) and Yale University (1989), Jain returned to Stony Brook University as a faculty member in 1989. In 1998, he joined Pennsylvania State University, where he continues his work. He has authored the monograph Composite Fermions (Cambridge University Press, 2007) and co-edited Fractional Quantum Hall Effects: New Developments (World Scientific, 2020) with Bertrand Halperin.

The three awardees have profoundly transformed our understanding of the fractional quantum Hall effect, (a Nobel prize-winning phenomenon) in which a thin layer of electrons in a magnetic field behaves as if the electrical current is carried by particles charged with a fraction of the electron charge.
A powerful and intuitively appealing way to understand these particles was developed by Dr. Jain, who introduced the concept of a composite fermion: a particle formed by binding an electron to a magnetic flux tube. The idea that large numbers of strongly interacting electrons behave as weakly interacting composite particles explains the intricate sequence of fractional quantum Hall states observed in the laboratory, now known as the Jain states. The composite fermion theory has provided quantitatively precise agreement with numerical studies, and it has predicted and explained experiments that find behavior reminiscent of a superconductor at special values (filling fraction 5/2) of the electron density.
Dr. Heiblum pioneered the exploration of these exotic particles in the laboratory. By developing ultra-high-purity materials and electron interferometry techniques, Heiblum’s group could provide concrete evidence for the fractional charge and verify fundamental predictions, including the anomalous statistics (intermediate between that of fermions and bosons). A milestone experiment was the observation of half-integer quantized thermal conductance at filling fraction 5/2, confirming the prediction that the corresponding composite fermions are Majorana fermions, and with potential implications for quantum computation.
Dr. Eisenstein co-discovered the fractional quantum Hall state at filling factor 5/2 and went on to explore exotic phases of two-dimensional electron systems. This includes an anisotropic state where the resistance probed along one direction is much larger than the resistance along the perpendicular direction, reminiscent of a liquid crystal. Eisenstein’s development of methods to separately contact individual electron layers enabled the study of the correlated motion of electron-hole pairs in the two layers, with the breakthrough observation of their Bose-Einstein condensation.
The award of the 2025 Wolf prize to these three physicists honors their extraordinary contributions to the exploration of quantum matter, with far-reaching impact on emerging quantum technologies.

Martin Rees

Affiliation at the time of the award:

Cambridge University, England

Award citation:

“for fundamental contributions to high-energy astrophysics, galaxies and structure formation, and cosmology”.

Prize share:

None

Lord Martin Rees (born in England in 1942) is one of the most distinguished theoretical physicists of our time, with seminal contributions in a large number of areas, from cosmology and the formation of the first stars and galaxies to high-energy astrophysics, to the formation and evolution of massive black holes in the centers of galaxies, tidal disruption of stars in the vicinity of such black holes, and more. These contributions shaped our deepest understanding of the Universe.

From a young age, with a strong background in mathematics, Rees discovered his attraction to astrophysics, which was, at that time, one of the fastest-growing areas of science, full of unexplained phenomena waiting to be explored. His first position as a professor at Sussex University, in 1973, soon brought him to the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, where he became the director of the institute, the Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy, and the Master of Trinity College. In later years, Rees became a Fellow, then the Royal Society President, and a House of Lords member in 2005. Since 1995, he has held the honorary title “The UK’s Astronomer Royal”.
Marin Rees has pioneered many ideas that are shaping our understanding of the Universe. In cosmology, he was the first to propose polarization measurements as a tool to probe the origin of fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background. This is now accepted as a key diagnostic tool of the very early universe. He was also an initiator of the field of 21cm cosmology, now becoming a very important tool for understanding the conditions in the universe prior to the birth of the first stars and galaxies. Another area where he made fundamental contributions is high-energy astrophysics. This includes the explanation of the physical processes driving extremely powerful Gamma-ray bursts from colliding neutron stars and a certain type of supernova, as well as the understanding of powerful radio jets from various types of galaxies. Later observations have confirmed Rees’s early theoretical works on the properties of such objects. Massive black holes in the centers of galaxies have been another area where Rees made numerous fundamental contributions, from suggesting various ways to explain the formation of individual black holes to ideas of how they produce their extremely high luminosity that can exceed the luminosity of entire galaxies and how the black hole population in the universe evolves in parallel to the cosmic evolution of galaxies. Such theoretical ideas are now being studied and confirmed by the most advanced ground-based and space borne telescopes. Other theoretical papers that have become timely because of recent observations are binary black hole mergers and the tidal disruption of stars by massive black holes, which have been discovered in dozens of galaxies.
Marin Rees is well known for his unusual ability to convey complex scientific concepts to the public. Over the years, he has delivered hundreds of public lectures and television interviews. He has written numerous general articles and popular science books on cosmology, life in the universe, black holes, and other topics of 21st-century science. The title of his recent book, from 2022, is “If Science is to Save Us.” In recent years, he has been spending much of his time in efforts to safeguard the global environment. He co-founded the “Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge,” an interdisciplinary research center that studies existential risks and fosters a global community to safeguard humanity.
Martin Rees is awarded the Wolf Prize for shaping our deepest understanding of the Universe. His outstanding contributions range from high-energy astrophysics, including mechanisms for gamma-ray bursts, powerful radio jets, and black hole formation in galactic nuclei, to cosmic structure formation and the physics of the earliest stars and galaxies at the end of the “dark age.” He was the first to propose polarization measurements as a tool to probe the origin of fluctuations and anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background (CMB), and an initiator of the field of 21cm cosmology.

Giorgio Parisi

Affiliation at the time of the award:

University of Rome ‘‘La Sapienza’’, Italy

Award citation:

“for ground-breaking discoveries in disordered systems, particle physics and statistical physics”.

Prize share:

None

Giorgio Parisi, Professor of theoretical physics at the University of Rome, ‘‘La Sapienza’’, whose research has focused on quantum field theory, statistical mechanics, and complex systems.

His father and grandfather were both construction workers, and the young Parisi was encouraged to become an engineer. Instead, Parisi was drawn to the complicated abstractions he read in books of popular science, science fiction and mathematics and wanted to do something that involved research. Parisi was torn between majoring in physics and mathematics. He attracted by the adventurous nature of research and sees physics as the terrain on which to play his intellectual challenge at the highest level. Parisi graduated in physics in 1970 in the shortest possible time, under the direction of Nicola Cabibbo. Parisi’s achievements span many areas of modern physics and even the field of biological models. He is author of many books, articles and ideas that have opened up new areas of research.

The Wolf Prize in Physics is awarded to Giorgio Parisi for being one of the most creative and influential theoretical physicists in recent decades. His work has a large impact on diverse branches of physical sciences, spanning the areas of particle physics, critical phenomena, disordered systems as well as optimization theory and mathematical physics. In 1977 together with Altarelli, Parisi discovered the evolution equations allowing to accurately formulating how quarks and gluons are distributed inside the proton and nuclei (they were discovered independently by Yu. L. Dokshitzer). Parisi’s work was indispensable in analyzing the fundamental structure of matter at the smallest possible distance scale done through high-energy scattering of elementary particles. His results have served in preparing and analyzing the experiments performed at the Large-Hardon-Collider (LHC), for dark matter searches, and are used today in the planning experiments for the Future Circular Collider.

In another series of seminal works from 1979-84, Parisi introduced the concept of replica symmetry breaking and applied it to models of “spin-glasses” (the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model), where no simple order parameter exists. His remarkable intuition led him to the discovery of the non-ergodic nature of the frustrated spin-glass phase, where many pure states unrelated by symmetry coexist, with a highly non-trivial ultra-metric structure. Parisi’s suggestion of a new organization of matter has led to a paradigm shift in statistical physics, and many applications followed in other disordered systems such as structural glasses, neural networks, and combinatorial optimization theory.

His highly innovative work (with Sourlas) in studying classical phase transitions has led to the possibility to identify the actual realization of a symmetry called supersymmetry in condensed matter systems.