India Shines in 2025 Breakthrough Prize for LHC Discoveries

India has once again demonstrated its prowess in global scientific collaboration as the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics has been awarded to teams involved in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments at CERN, Switzerland. Indian researchers, who have long been key contributors to the ALICE and CMS experiments, are being celebrated for their critical roles in cutting-edge physics research that explores the building blocks of the universe.

Why in News?

The 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics—considered the “Oscars of Science”—has been awarded to co-authors of scientific papers based on LHC’s Run-2 data from 2015 to mid-2024. India, a long-standing partner in CERN’s LHC experiments, played a key role in both ALICE and CMS collaborations, and the award highlights the global impact of its contributions.

About the Breakthrough Prize

• Established in 2012 by tech leaders like Sergey Brin and Mark Zuckerberg.
• Carries a prize of $3 million, among the richest in science.
• Recognizes transformative advances in Fundamental Physics, Life Sciences, and Mathematics.

CERN and LHC – Background

• CERN: European Organization for Nuclear Research, based in Geneva.
• LHC: World’s most powerful particle accelerator, used to collide protons and heavy ions at near-light speeds.
• Primary goal: Understand fundamental forces and particles like the Higgs boson, quark-gluon plasma, and matter-antimatter asymmetry.

India’s Long-standing Involvement

• Initial Involvement: Began in 1960s via TIFR.
• Formal Cooperation: India signed a Cooperation Agreement in 1991, and a MoU in 2009.
• Observer Status in 2002; became Associate Member State of CERN in 2017.

India’s Role in ALICE & CMS Experiments

ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment)

• Institutions: VECC, SINP, IOP-Bhubaneswar, IIT Mumbai, Panjab Univ., AMU, etc.

Contributions

• Photon Multiplicity Detector (PMD) and Muon Spectrometer
• Research on quark-gluon plasma, resonance production, event fluctuations

CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid)

• Institutions: DU, IISc, BARC, TIFR, IITs, NISER, IISERs, BIT Mesra, etc.

Contributions

• Trigger systems, Silicon Preshower Detector, Resistive Plate Chambers
• Major research in Higgs boson, top-quark, BSM physics

Technical Contributions Beyond Experiments

BARC and RRCAT developed,

• Superconducting magnets, cryogenics, beam instrumentation
• Collimators, vacuum chambers, radio-frequency systems

Role in Global LHC Computing Grid (WLCG)

• India hosts Tier-2 centers at TIFR, VECC.

Contributions

• 17,400 cores and 12 PB storage
• Over 17.5 million ALICE jobs supported in 15 years

Training and Knowledge Transfer

• Over 110 PhD theses and 130+ papers from ALICE & CMS data

Students gain exposure to,

• Scientific computing
• Instrumentation
• International collaboration

Future Indian Contributions

• ALICE: Developing Forward Calorimeter (FoCal) for photon/pion precision.
• CMS: Working on Phase-2 Upgrades including:
• Outer Tracker (OT), Gas Electron Multiplier (GEM), High Granular Calorimeter (HGCAL), and Trigger systems.