University of Hyderabad team basks in global glory as Large Hadron Collider wins 2025 Breakthrough Prize

A scientist walking in a tunnel inside the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) Large Hadron Collider, during maintenance works on July 19, 2013, in Meyrin, near Geneva. File
| Photo Credit: AFP

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiment at CERN — Europe’s premier research centre for particle physics and home to the world’s largest particle accelerator — that won the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics has an Indian connection. A team led by Bhawna Gomber at the Centre for Advanced Study in Electronics, Science and Technology (CASEST), School of Physics, University of Hyderabad (UoH), played a key role in the experiment, the university said on Tuesday.

The Breakthrough Prize honours the work of international scientists at CERN who have expanded understanding of the universe’s fundamental nature. The LHC experiment, which includes the groundbreaking 2012 discovery of the Higgs boson, has been central to these efforts.

Gomber’s team at the UoH has contributed to the CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) experiment at CERN through data analysis, trigger electronics, and research in high-energy particle interactions. Their work focuses on exploring physics beyond the Standard Model, particularly in the search for dark matter particles, large extra dimensions and anomalous trilinear gauge couplings.

“We are thrilled to see our years of effort recognised as part of this global milestone. It’s a proud moment not just for our team, but for the Indian scientific community as a whole,” said Gomber.

The experimental high energy physics group at UoH was started by professors Bindu Bambah and Rukmani Mohanta by joining the NOVA collaboration and Indian institutes at Fermilab collaboration in the USA, a release from UoH informed.