Brief Context
Context The 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics was jointly awarded to four experimental collaborations operating at CERNs Large Hadron Collider (LHC)—ATLAS, CMS, ALICE and LHCb. What are the Breakthrough Prizes? The Breakthrough Prizes were founded by Sergey Brin, Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, Yuri and Julia Milner, and Anne Wojcicki.
Source Content
Syllabus: GS3/ Science and Technology
Context
- The 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics was jointly awarded to four experimental collaborations operating at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC)—ATLAS, CMS, ALICE and LHCb.
- The four collaborations studied the Higgs boson, considered as elementary as electrons, photons or neutrinos.
What are the Breakthrough Prizes?
- The Breakthrough Prizes were founded by Sergey Brin, Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, Yuri and Julia Milner, and Anne Wojcicki.
- The Prizes often referred to as the “Oscars of Science,” honour pioneering achievements in Life Sciences, Fundamental Physics, and Mathematics.
- Aim: Celebrate scientists as societal heroes, inspire the youth towards science, and promote “science for the benefit of all.”
India’s Role in Global Collaboration
- Indian scientists have played a significant role in the international collaboration for the ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) and the CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) experiments.
- Contribution to ALICE: It focuses on studying the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP), a state of matter believed to have existed shortly after the Big Bang.
- Contribution to CMS: Indian institutions have contributed to detector development, software tools, and data analysis for the CMS experiment, which was crucial in the discovery of the Higgs boson.
Large Hadron Collider (LHC)
- The LHC is the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator, enabling high-energy proton and heavy-ion collisions to explore the structure of matter at the smallest scales.
- It’s a 27-kilometer tunnel-like ring built at CERN.
- CERN: The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN, was established in 1954 in Geneva (France–Switzerland border).
- India–CERN Partnership:
- 1991: Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) signed the first cooperation agreement with CERN.
- 2002: India awarded Observer status at CERN.
- 2009: MoU signed to expand cooperation in detector technology, computing, HR training, and joint research.
- 2017: India became an Associate Member State of CERN.
Source: PIB