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Archana Sharma is a distinguished Indian physicist and senior scientist at the CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. [1] Her research focuses on high energy physics. [2] [3] She is internationally recognized for her work in instrumentation and gaseous detectors, specifically for her pioneering work on micro-pattern gaseous detectors. [1] She received the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award in 2023 for her contribution in science and technology. [4] [5]
Sharma was born to a middle-class family in Aligarh and raised in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh. [6] Both of her parents were teachers––her father taught mechanical engineering, and her mother taught economics and geography. [7]
Sharma studied physics at Banaras Hindu University as an undergraduate student and received her masters in nuclear physics from the same university in 1982. [7] [8] In 1989, she received her PhD in experimental particle physics from Delhi University. [1] [9] Sharma earned a second doctorate degree from the University of Geneva in 1996 [10] and an executive MBA degree from the International University in Geneva in 2001. [1]
Sharma's involvement at CERN began in 1987 when she won a three-year fellowship to conduct research in the detector development group led by Georges Charpak. [11] After finishing her first PhD in Delhi, Sharma moved to Geneva with her family in 1989 to conduct her post-doctoral research in gaseous detectors, through which she realized her lack of expertise in instrumentation and thus decided to pursue a second PhD at the University of Geneva. [7]
After finishing her second PhD, Sharma held positions at the GSI-Darmstadt in Germany and the University of Maryland, College Park. [8] Since 2001, she has worked at CERN on the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment, designing high-efficiency detectors to facilitate the detection of the Higgs-Boson particle. [9] She has mentored around 20 PhD students during her time at CERN and has authored or co-authored over 800 publications. [1] [7] [12]
Sharma is best known for her work in gaseous detectors, through which she contributed to the discovery of the Higgs boson. She works at the CMS experiment in the Large Hadron Collider, developing a new muon system called GEM (Gas Electron Multiplier), which can detect muons in the outermost layer of the CMS. [6] Detecting a muon can confirm the production of a Higgs boson, and the CMS is also important in studying other dimensions, background radiation, and the components of dark matter. [7] [6] Sharma is also known as a pioneer for her work on wire chambers, resistive plate chambers, and micro-pattern gaseous detectors, all of which laid the foundations for her larger work in the CMS experiment. [6]
Particle physics or high-energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The field also studies combinations of elementary particles up to the scale of protons and neutrons, while the study of combination of protons and neutrons is called nuclear physics.
The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN, is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in Meyrin, western suburb of Geneva, on the France–Switzerland border. It comprises 23 member states. Israel, admitted in 2013, is the only non-European full member. CERN is an official United Nations General Assembly observer.
The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment is one of two large general-purpose particle physics detectors built on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Switzerland and France. The goal of the CMS experiment is to investigate a wide range of physics, including the search for the Higgs boson, extra dimensions, and particles that could make up dark matter.
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The High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider is an upgrade to the Large Hadron Collider, operated by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), located at the French-Swiss border near Geneva. From 2011 to 2020, the project was led by Lucio Rossi. In 2020, the lead role was taken up by Oliver Brüning.
The MicroMegas detector is a gaseous particle detector and an advancement of the wire chamber. Invented in 1996 by Georges Charpak and Ioannis Giomataris, Micromegas detectors are mainly used in experimental physics, in particular in particle physics, nuclear physics and astrophysics for the detection of ionizing particles.
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