CERN Is Exploring How India Can Be Part Of Its Future: Director-General, Pg12

Key Highlights:

• Mark Thomson, Director-General of CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research), visited Mumbai to discuss future mega-science projects.
• CERN is planning the Future Circular Collider (FCC), a new 91-km ring expected to be operational by 2045-48, and an upgrade to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) called the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC).
• The LHC was officially shut down on June 29, 2026, and is scheduled to remain offline until 2030 for upgrades.
• CERN is exploring how India can be a part of its future projects, recognizing the country's technological strength and brilliant people.
• India became an Associate Member State of CERN on January 16, 2017.

Detailed Insights:

• Mark Thomson emphasized the global need for more mega-science projects to push the boundaries of innovation and technology.
• The proposed Future Circular Collider (FCC) would be a 91-kilometer ring, significantly larger than the 27-kilometer LHC, and is expected to collide electrons and positrons.
• A decision on the FCC's approval is anticipated by 2028, with its final stage aiming for electron-positron collisions.
• The High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC), an upgraded version of the LHC, is expected to be operational from 2028 or 2030 onwards.
• The HL-LHC will increase the data volume by a factor of 10, enabling more detailed studies of the Higgs boson and the search for rare new phenomena.
• The LHC, the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator, was instrumental in the discovery of the Higgs boson.
• Scientific mysteries that remain include the universe's matter-antimatter asymmetry and the unknown 95% of its mass and energy.
• India's Associate Member State status with CERN allows Indian scientists to be eligible for staff appointments and Indian industries to bid for CERN contracts.
• Indian scientists have a long history of collaboration with CERN, contributing to the construction of the LHC, various experiments like ALICE and CMS, and GRID computing.

Scientific/Technical Concepts Involved:

• CERN: The European Organization for Nuclear Research, an intergovernmental organization operating the world's largest particle physics laboratory.
• Particle Accelerator: A machine that uses electromagnetic fields to propel charged particles to very high speeds and energies for fundamental research.
• Large Hadron Collider (LHC): The world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator, located at CERN, used to collide subatomic particles to study fundamental physics.
• Higgs Boson: An elementary particle associated with the Higgs field, which is theorized to give mass to other fundamental particles.
• Future Circular Collider (FCC): A proposed next-generation particle collider at CERN, planned to be significantly larger and more powerful than the LHC.
• High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC): An upgraded version of the LHC designed to increase the number of particle collisions and data volume by a factor of 10.