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François Englert co-developed a mechanism for generating gauge boson masses with Robert Brout. The starting theory retains its local gauge structure, while the physical vacuum gives a different excitation spectrum. Their 1964 paper explains how this avoids carrying the massless-mode conclusion of a global broken symmetry unchanged into a gauge theory. The connection between spontaneous symmetry breaking and massive vector particles became central to the Higgs mechanism.^[ref]

A physicist who co-directed the theoretical physics unit at Université libre de Bruxelles.^[ref]

In their 1964 paper, François Englert and Robert Brout showed that gauge bosons associated with generators that rotate the chosen vacuum acquire masses while gauge invariance is maintained. Their discussion included both scalar and fermionic models.^[ref]

Independently, Peter Higgs exhibited a massive vector and a surviving massive scalar field by linearizing a simple gauge theory. His paper explicitly distinguishes this classical calculation from a proof for the full quantized theory. These 1964 mechanisms supplied an ingredient for the later electroweak interaction, rather than the complete Standard Model.^[ref]

Awarded in equal shares to François Englert and Peter W. Higgs for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism explaining the origin of mass in subatomic particles, confirmed by discovery of the predicted particle in the ATLAS experiment and CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider.^[ref]

Robert Brout and François Englert showed how gauge bosons can acquire mass in a theory with spontaneous symmetry breaking. Their 1964 analysis couples a degenerate-vacuum matter system to a gauge field. The resulting excitation spectrum can contain massive vector particles rather than the massless scalar modes expected for an ungauged broken symmetry. This supplied a mechanism for relating interaction symmetry to particle mass, an essential ingredient of the later electroweak theory.^[ref]

A physicist who developed theoretical physics research at Université libre de Bruxelles.^[ref]