Breakthrough Prize 2025

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