Ragnhild Lunnan awarded the Nagler price in physics
The Royal Academy of Sciences has awarded the Nagel price in physics to Ragnhild Lunnan, assistant professor at the Department of Astronomy. She is one of two scientists sharing the price for 2026.
Ragnhild Lunnan.
Ragnhild Lunnan was awarded the price with the motivation,
for outstanding contributions to detection methods and characterization of superluminous supernovae.
Ragnhild's research is in the field of supernovae, the explosions that mark the end of life for very massive stars. Her focus is on observing and understanding rare types of supernovae, in particular so called super luminous supernovae. These are much more luminous than common supernovae, but it's still unclear which physical processes that powers their intense emission of radiation. By using large observational surveys she has shown that these supernovae, in contrast to more normal supernovae, often explode in galaxies with very low abundancies of heavy elements which is a vital clue to how they are formed. Ragnhild has also done several other big discoveries, for example detecting resonant light echoes around the superluminous supernovae, and contributed to new insights around how the stars lose mass before exploding.
Ragnhild is the project leader of the ERC-funded TranspIre project and is a member in the Zwicky Transient Facility science team. She is also a member of the Young Academy of Sweden.
Facts
The Christian Nagel Memorial Price for young researchers in physics and chemistry is awarded every year to two young researchers (younger than 40 years). The prices consist of 100 000 kronor as a personal price and 900 000 kronor as a research grant. The price alternates between physics (even years) and chemistry (odd years).
The Nagel price is a result from a donation from Bengt Nagel (1927-2016), chairman of the Academy of Sciences and long-time secretary of the Nobel Price committee for physics.
More information
News item from the Royal Academy of Sciences (in Swedish).
Contact
Ragnhild Lunnan, ragnhild.lunnan@astro.su.se
Last updated: 2026-07-02
Source: Department of Astronomy