2025 Breakthrough Prize Ceremony
Kolkata: The Experimental High Energy Physics (HEP) group at Bose Institute, Kolkata, has been awarded the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics as part of the ‘A Large Ion Collider Experiment (ALICE)’ at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN). The team, comprising faculty members Prof. Supriya Das, Dr. Sidharth Kumar Prasad, and Dr. Saikat Biswas, Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Sanchari Thakur, and Senior Research Fellow Mr. Mintu Haldar, shares this honour with thousands of researchers worldwide.
The $3 million Breakthrough Prize recognises over 13,508 researchers from more than 70 countries across four collaborations at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC): ATLAS, CMS, ALICE, and LHCb. ALICE, which receives $500,000, investigates Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP), a state of extremely hot and dense matter present microseconds after the Big Bang. Bose Institute, the only autonomous institute under India’s Department of Science and Technology participating in ALICE, joined the collaboration under the leadership of former Director Prof. Sibaji Raha as Principal Investigator.
The Bose Institute HEP group has made significant contributions to ALICE, including detector hardware development, simulation, physics analysis, data collection, and experiment operations. They developed the Photon Multiplicity Detector (PMD), an indigenously built proportional counter for detecting inclusive photons at forward rapidity. Commissioned in 2008, the PMD operated in ALICE until 2018, with Bose Institute leading its operations from 2014 and overseeing data cleanup, calibration, and quality assurance for physics analysis, in collaboration with students from various Indian institutes and universities.
The team also contributed to upgrading ALICE’s Time Projection Chamber (TPC) to handle the high-luminosity environment of the LHC. The upgraded TPC uses Micro-Pattern Gas Detectors (MPGD), specifically Gas Electron Multiplier (GEM) technology, with stacks of four GEM foils combining different hole pitches. This upgrade offers low ion back flow, excellent energy resolution, and long-term operational stability. Bose Institute researchers played a key role in this TPC upgradation project.
In the physics programme, Bose Institute faculty and trainees led six ALICE publications and contributed to several others, advancing understanding of QGP. Former team members, including Prof. Sanjay Kumar Ghosh, Dr. Rathijit Biswas, Dr. Abhi Modak, Dr. Debjani Banerjee, Dr. Prottoy Das, and Dr. Md. Asif Bhatt, also made notable contributions.
Prof. Kaustuv Sanyal, Director of Bose Institute, congratulated the HEP group, stating, “This award is a milestone for Bose Institute and India’s high-energy physics community. It will motivate young scientists to engage in complex, large-scale experiments like ALICE at CERN.” ALICE Spokesperson Prof. Marco Van Leeuwen praised the collaboration, noting that all authors of publications based on LHC Run 2 data (up to 15 July 2024) are listed as laureates.
The prize money, allocated as $1 million to ATLAS, $1 million to CMS, $500,000 to ALICE, and $500,000 to LHCb, will fund Breakthrough Prize studentships. These will enable selected PhD students to conduct research at CERN for up to two years.
– global bihari bureau
