The award was granted for her paper published in the prestigious journal Physical Review Letters, in which she investigated how the particles that make up the atomic nucleus behave in gentle collisions between nuclei. The research showed that, under certain conditions, these constituent particles of nuclei — nucleons — are transferred from one nucleus to another in pairs. This transfer of correlated pairs of nucleons is a manifestation of quantum phenomena.
The award was presented to Dr. Szilner at a ceremony marking the 165th anniversary of the founding of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, during which HAZU Awards were presented for the highest scientific and artistic achievements in 2025.
At the award ceremony, it was noted that Dr. Szilner had made significant progress in understanding the role of particle pairing in collisions between many-particle systems of atomic nuclei. By granting her this award, HAZU has recognized her work as one of the most valuable scientific achievements in Croatia over the past year.
For a scientist working in one of the most demanding fields of modern physics, this award represents confirmation of many years of dedicated work in nuclear physics. Dr. Szilner’s research focuses on understanding what happens at the very centre of the atom — in atomic nuclei — and how collisions between these nuclei unfold, with the aim of better understanding the forces that determine the structure and stability of nuclei, and therefore of matter itself.
Although such research takes place at scales far removed from everyday experience, the questions it addresses are profoundly fundamental: what the world is made of, how atomic nuclei behave, and which rules govern matter at its deepest level.
In the award-winning paper, Quest for Cooper Pair Transfer in Heavy-Ion Reactions: The 206Pb + Sn Case, Dr. Szilner and her collaborators investigated neutron transfer in reactions between lead and tin nuclei. Through precise measurements, they observed how, during the interaction of these nuclei, one or two neutrons may be transferred from one nucleus to another. The results showed that the transfer of two neutrons cannot always be explained as the simple transfer of two separate particles. Instead, in certain cases, the neutrons are transferred together, as a correlated, quantum-mechanically coupled pair.
This kind of knowledge is essential for understanding fundamental processes in nature, including the formation of chemical elements and the behaviour of matter under extreme conditions, such as those found in stars.
The HAZU Award presented to Dr. Suzana Szilner is a special recognition of her scientific excellence, as well as confirmation of the international relevance of the research conducted at the Ruđer Bošković Institute. The publication of the paper in Physical Review Letters further confirms that this is a result that extends beyond the national framework and contributes to the global understanding of modern physics.
HAZU Day is marked in memory of 29 April 1861, when the Croatian Parliament, chaired by Ban Josip Šokčević and acting on the proposal of Bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer, adopted the decision to establish the Academy. This decision was implemented after it was confirmed in 1866 by Croatian King Franz Joseph I.
The Ruđer Bošković Institute congratulates Dr. Suzana Szilner on this important recognition and on receiving the Award of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and wishes her many more outstanding scientific results.
