India to play larger role as CERN looks for more Higgs-like particles: Physicist

India is playing a larger role than ever at CERN as the country can now propose experiments and also vote on its important decisions, says an eminent Indian-origin scientist at the organisation which runs the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator.

Archana Sharma, a senior scientist at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), Geneva, Switzerland, who was involved in the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012, said that CERN will look for more Higgs-like particles.

Talking about how India has now become an active CERN member, she said, "India has been at CERN since 1970s and Indian scientists have been participating at CERN because of a huge talent pool in the country.

"We were seriously engaged with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiment, with the ALICE and CMS experiments, and with the accelerator itself."
Asked how India has contributed to CERN since becoming an associate member officially last year, Sharma said "India is a huge country, it has a huge potential. So already you see there is a lot of India at CERN working in the various experiments, various R and D projects and the accelerator for the future."
Asked about the initiatives taken by India to engage more proactively at CERN, she said, "India's Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology (RRCAT) in Indore engages extensively with CERN and they have collaboration there."