The Nobel committee offered the 2008 Nobel Prize for Physics to two Japanese scientists and a Tokyo-born American for their work focused on discovering sub-atomic particles.

The three, Yoichiro Nambu, 87, a Tokyo-born American citizen, Makoto Kobayashi (64) and Toshihide Maskawa (68) of Japan were honored for their research on the spontaneous broken symmetries in sub-atomic physics, which was mostly done in the 1960s and 1970s.

"Spontaneous broken symmetry conceals nature's order under an apparently jumbled surface," the academy said in its citation. "Nambu's theories permeate the standard model of elementary particle physics. The model unifies the smallest building blocks of all matter and three of nature's four forces in one single theory." Referring to Kobayashi and Maskawa’s work, the committee noted that they "explained broken symmetry within the framework of the standard model but required that the model be extended to three families of quarks."

Nambu, the mechanism’s discoverer, received half of the $1.4 million prize, while Kobayashi and Maskawa shared the other half. Each one also received a medal, a diploma and an invitation to attend the prize ceremony scheduled for December 10 in Stockholm.

Kobayashi was extremely surprised and said that the news came as a shock. "It is my great honor and I can't believe this," he said.

The prize was awarded by the Nobel Committee for Physics at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and is part of this year’s second round of Nobel prizes. The prizes reward extraordinary achievements in science, economics, peace and literature. Last year’s award for physics was given to Albert Fert from France and to Peter Gruenberg from Germany for their work on the discovery of giant magnetoresistance.

Italian Institute for Nuclear Physics president Roberto Petronzio slammed the omission of Nicola Cabibbo from honour.

"What bitterness, Kobayashi and Maskawa, have the sole merit of generalizing, moreover in a simple way, the idea of Cabibbo," Petronzio was quoted as saying by daily La Repubblica on Wednesday.

"An incredible scandal, Cabibbo made the first and fundamental part of the discovery," the honorary president of the Italian Physics association, Renato Angelo Ricci, told the daily Corriere della Sera.

The academy's decision to exclude Cabibbo also drew criticism beyond Italy's borders.

"Physics Nobel snubs key researcher," said the respected British publication, New Scientist, referring to Cabibbo, who it said had "laid the ground work for Kobayashi and Maskawa."

Cabibbo, a professor at Rome's La Sapienza University and president of the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Sciences was not immediately available for comment on the issue.