Chilean astronomer Laura Pérez wins one of the most important scientific awards in the world

The prize, which was announced internationally today, will be shared by four astronomers: Paola Pinilla (University College London, England), Tilman Birnstiel (Ludwig Maximilian University, Germany), Nienke van der Marel (Leiden University, The Netherlands) and Laura Pérez (Universidad de Chile, Chile). “We are four people dedicated to understanding planetary formation with theoretical and observational studies, using state-of-the-art instruments such as the ALMA telescope”, says the also academic of the Department of Astronomy of the Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences of the University of Chile. 

“For the University of Chile it is a great joy and pride that the astronomer Laura Perez has been recognized with the prestigious ‘2024 New Horizon Prize in Physics’ for her fundamental contribution to unsolved the challenge that represents the process of planet formation. This award is in addition to the one she received before from the “World Academy of Sciences” in 2021 and shows that world-class science can be done in Chile, which will undoubtedly stimulate more young people, especially girls, to follow her path. In both cases it is the first time that a Chilean scientist is awarded, therefore Laura not only generates new realities with her discoveries, but also puts Chile in the world through knowledge. We also highlight her generosity that she shows by frequently sharing her work and experience with girls interested in pursuing science”, said Rosa Deves, Rector of the University of Chile.

The prize consists of 100,000 dollars (about 89 million pesos), which will be distributed among the winners. “I think it is very relevant to recognize the research done in our country in the field of astrophysics. Thanks to the policy of access to astronomical observations for telescopes installed in our country, which reserves 10% of the time for research led by those who work in national institutions, we have been able to contribute to the field of planetary formation”, adds Laura.

“This extraordinary award is a well-deserved recognition of the original and innovative research that Laura has carried out to understand the formation of planetary systems around stars. Her research has enormous relevance to finally understanding how stars, planets, our own solar system, and even how the Earth originated. In particular, Laura has revolutionized our knowledge about protoplanetary disks, disks of gas and dust that surround stars during their formation, which are dense and cold, being their observations in the optical range very difficult”, so says Guido Garay, Director of the CATA Astrophysics Center and National Prize of Exact Sciences 2017.

Laura Pérez is a Ph.D. in Astrophysics from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), an academic at the Department of Astronomy of the Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences of the University of Chile and one of the principal investigators of the Center of Excellence in Astrophysics, CATA. She has taught graduate thesis to several young students, one of them being Teresa Paneque, a current PhD student in Astronomy at the European Southern Observatory (Germany) who has hundreds of thousands of followers in social networks.

Research on “Dust Traps”.

The award is given for her research on the prediction, discovery and modeling of dust traps, solving a long-standing problem in the area of planet formation. Professor Perez explains “I think that among the four awardees we complement each other well, since some of us are observational astronomers and others are more theoretical. In particular, my contribution has been to collect, understand, and interpret astronomical observations of protoplanetary disks, which show the existence of regions where dust is accumulated and trapped, which we call “dust traps”. It is here where the solid material concentrates and allows planetary formation, if they did not exist, this material would end up being absorbed by the star in a phenomenon called radial slip”.

She adds that “recently, thanks to the ALMA telescope and its extraordinary capabilities, we have been able to distinguish these regions where dust survives radial sliding, in substructures such as rings and vortices in these disks. I feel very honored, happy, and very grateful that the impact of our work is being recognized, especially the work we have done and continue to do at the University of Chile”, she says.

About her future she shares “we are doing several different projects: trying to find planets in formation using the observatories in the north of the country and hopefully soon the JWST space telescope, also investigating how protoplanetary disks evolve with a program that uses more than 100 hours in the ALMA telescope. In the longer term, we will study what is really the mass in solid material of the disks, using complementary observations at ALMA and VLA (Very Large Array), and I would like -in the future- to use the new instruments and telescopes in the north to expand this type of research”, concludes the award winner.

About the Prize

The “New Horizons in Physics Prize” is awarded to early-career physicists and mathematicians advancing in their fields of research. It is awarded by the “Breakthrough Prize Foundation”, an organization founded in 2012 by sponsors Sergey Brin, Priscilla Chan & Mark Zuckerberg, Julia & Yuri Milner, and Anne Wojcicki.

Each year 5 main prizes are awarded (3 in life sciences, 1 in fundamental physics and 1 in mathematics), in addition to the Young Investigator Awards, the “New Horizons” in physics and mathematics.

They are known as the “Oscars of Science” due to the impressive ceremony in which they are awarded. On previous occasions the awards have been held at such prestigious venues as the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, hosted by artists such as James Corden and attended by world-famous actors such as Kristen Bell, Lily Collins, Gal Gadot, Robert Downey Jr., Brie Larson, Leslie Odom Jr. and Chris Pine, among many others.

A tremendous honor for the CATA Astrophysics Center.

(text by Guido Garay, CATA Director and National Science Award 2017)

It was with great happiness and delight that we learned that Laura Pérez, Principal Investigator of the Center for Astrophysics and Related Technologies, has been awarded the “2024 New Horizons in Physics Prize”, which is given to young researchers who have made exceptional contributions to the understanding of new physical phenomena.

His early work dealt with the growth of dust grains from microscopic sizes (thousands of millimeters) to macroscopic sizes of the order of centimeters, the latter being the fundamental building blocks for the formation of planets. This study cannot be performed using optical telescopes but requires observations at radio wavelengths. Laura developed new techniques to observe emission at millimeter wavelengths, opening the way for the study of planet formation.

Given her experience, Laura was invited to join a select group of astronomers with the objective of obtaining the first images to be produced by the ALMA telescope with an angular resolution of thousandths of an arcsecond. This team succeeded in producing the first millimeter-wavelength image of a protoplanetary disk at very high resolution. The image showed an extraordinary pattern of bright and dark rings in the disk surrounding a very young star. The dark rings or gaps correspond to regions of low density produced by the sweep of disk material by invisible planets orbiting the disk. Laura’s research is currently focused on determining the physical characteristics, dynamics and chemical properties of protoplanetary disks in order to determine how they grow and evolve.

All the amazing achievements of this young scientist have made her worthy of this prestigious “2024 New Horizons in Physics Prize”, for which not only CATA and the University of Chile, but the whole country should feel happy and proud.