The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) has awarded its 2019 Dirac Medal and Prize to three physicists whose research has made a profound impact on modern cosmology.

Viatcheslav Mukhanov (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich), Alexei Starobinsky (Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics) and Rashid Sunyaev (Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics) share the prize for “their outstanding contributions to the physics of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) with experimentally tested implications that have helped to transform cosmology into a precision scientific discipline by combining microscopic physics with the large scale structure of the Universe.”

All three winners have made important contributions to the understanding of the early Universe in the context of inflationary cosmology. It is worth mentioning that A. Starobinsky is also Сhief Scientific Researcher of the BLTP JINR and has a long-term collaboration with our Institute; he is a co-organizer and lecturer of the Helmholtz International Schools organized by the Bogoliubov Laboratory of Theoretical Physics JINR in the frames of the DIAS-TH programme. Professor of Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich V. Mukhanov repeatedly participated in the Helmholtz Schools as a lecturer as well.

The Dirac Medal of the ICTP is given each year by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in honour of physicist Paul Dirac – one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century, who worked closely with ICTP. The award for scientists who have made significant contributions to theoretical physics, announced each year on 8 August (Dirac’s birthday), was first awarded in 1985. A pleiad of brilliant scientists who became laureates of the Dirac Prize was awarded the Nobel prize. In 1992, the ICTP posthumously awarded the Dirac Medal to the outstanding theoretical physicist, Director of JINR (1965 – 1989), founder and the first Director of the Laboratory of Theoretical Physics JINR (1956 – 1965).