India makes a Big Bang at Cern

Even as people across the globe eagerly waited to know more about the world’s biggest experiment which is an attempt to decode the deepest mysteries of the universe, it was literally celebration time at top institutes including the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR).

Almost a decade in the making, Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s highest energy particle accelerator, passed its first major test by firing a beam of protons around a 27-km tunnel in the France-Switzerland border near Geneva on Wednesday.

A visibly excited NK Mondal, scientist at TIFR and an active participant in this experiment, said, “People globally were simply waiting for this time to arrive. There may be some potholes in the way but we’ve finally taken the first few steps towards our target, so you can imagine our excitement.”

Built at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, the experiment aims to understand aspects like big bang, Higgs particle, dark matter and dark energy, among others. Scientists also hope that the experiment enables them to unravel extra dimensions if, at all, they exist. “While the actual collision will take place sometime in mid-October, we hope to get a first glimpse at Higgs after one year of running but only if we are very lucky,” said Mondal.

Around 150 institutions, spread across 30 countries, are participating in this endeavour.
“While Indian scientists have contributed to earlier experiments at CERN and Fermilab, it is for the first time that a single experiment has seen the coming together of one the largest number of scientists from India and the world towards what is being called the “mother of all scientific programmes”, said scientists at TIFR.

A senior scientist who has been with TIFR since 1986 termed this a “big opportunity”. “We and our PhD students are fortunate to be a part of this global effort,” she said.
What is significant, said Mondal, is that India has contributed both towards making the machine as well as detectors. In terms of so many independent minds working for a collective phenomenon, the experiment has also shown a paradigm shift in the way scientists conduct research, he said.

While one Indian team participates in the CMS experiment led by TIFR, the other team is in the ALICE experiment and, for both, Indian groups have fabricated high performance detectors. “We’ve participated right from the design stage to creating one of the sub-detectors, fabrication and then commissioning and testing. We’ve also helped in developing software programmes for fabrication among others. Today’s successful test has made us more confident,” said Mondal.