The 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics was awarded to the to four collaborations at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research), namely ATLAS, CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid), ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment), and LHCb (Large Hadron Collider beauty).
- The 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics is awarded based on CERN’s Large Hadron Collider Run-2 data released between 2015 and July 15, 2024, at the experimental collaborations ATLAS, CMS, ALICE and LHCb.
- India has been a long-time partner in CERN’s LHC experiments particularly from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics (SINP), Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar, and Panjab University.
- This award highlights the vital role of Indian scientists in global scientific collaborations at CERN.
India-CERN Partnership
- 1960s: Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) collaboration on particle beam experiments.
- 1980s-90s: Contributions to Large Electron Positron Collider (LEP) experiments, WA93, WA98 heavy-ion studies.
- 1991: India (DAE) signed a formal cooperation agreement with CERN.
- 2002: Awarded “Observer” status at CERN.
- 2004: India gifted a 2m tall statue of Shiva Nataraja to CERN, symbolizing the cosmic dance of particles and the intersection of science and spirituality.
- 2017: Became Associate Member State.
- India is represented on:
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- Research and Resources Board (RRB)
- Advisory Committee of CERN Users (ACCU)
- Scientific Council
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About Breakthrough Prize
- Purpose: The Breakthrough Prize given annually aims to honour exceptional achievements in Life Sciences, Fundamental Physics, and Mathematics.
- Dubbed as: It is often called the “Oscars of Science”.
- Founders: Established in 2013 by Mark Zuckerberg, Priscilla Chan, and other tech and science philanthropists.
- Prize Amount: Each award carries a monetary prize of $3 million.
About CERN
- It is one of the world’s largest centres for scientific research in particle physics.
- Founded: 1954
- Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland
- Member States: 23 European countries
- Mission: To understand the fundamental structure of the universe by studying particles — the building blocks of matter.
About the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)
- The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world’s most advanced and powerful particle accelerator, designed to explore the fundamental particles that form the basic building blocks of matter.
- It is operated by CERN.
- It enables high-energy proton and heavy-ion collisions to probe the structure of matter.
India’s Role in CERN-LHC Experiments
- Large Hadron Collider (LHC): Indian institutes like BARC (Mumbai) and RRCAT (Indore) contributed key components for cryogenics, superconducting magnets, beam instrumentation, Radio Frequency systems etc.
- Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG): WLCG is a global network that processes and analyses the vast data generated by LHC experiments.
- India has contributed to software and tools used across the grid, such as GRIDVIEW (monitoring) and SHIVA (problem tracking).
- ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment): India designed and constructed and commissioned ingeniously the Photon Multiplicity Detector (PMD) and Muon Spectrometer, vital for studies of quark gluon plasma.
- India is also contributing to the p-type silicon-based Forward Calorimeter (FoCal) for precision photon and pion measurements at forward rapidities.
- CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid): Indian teams have led research in Higgs boson searches, top-quark and flavor physics, electroweak measurements, and supersymmetry.
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