CERN Physicist Prof. Marco van Leeuwen Visits Panjab University; Delivers Lecture on Quark–Gluon Plasma

Chandigarh, October 16, 2025: Prof. Marco van Leeuwen, spokesperson of the ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) collaboration at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC), today met Panjab University Vice-Chancellor Prof. Renu Vig and discussed future opportunities for collaboration and the growing role of Indian institutions in international high-energy physics experiments.

During his visit, Prof. van Leeuwen delivered a seminar on “Exploring Quark–Gluon Plasma at the Large Hadron Collider” at PU Physics Department. The International seminar was attended by students, research scholars, and faculty members.

In his lecture, Prof. van Leeuwen presented the latest results from ALICE on the properties of strongly interacting matter under extreme conditions, offering new insights into the state of the early universe moments after the Big Bang.

The visit was coordinated by Prof. Lokesh Kumar of the Department of Physics, PU, which marked a significant academic engagement between one of the world’s leading particle physics collaborations and the Indian high-energy physics community. The visit further strengthened the long-standing collaboration between ALICE and Indian research groups, providing PU students and faculty an inspiring exposure to the forefront of experimental nuclear and particle physics.

Prof. van Leeuwen also met Prof. Surya Kant Tripathi, Chairperson of the PU’s Department of Physics, and exchanged views on strengthening collaborative research in high-energy nuclear physics.

Earlier, Prof. van Leeuwen visited the Semi-Conductor Laboratory (SCL) in Mohali, where part of the ALICE Forward Calorimeter is being fabricated — a major contribution from India to the ALICE experiment. He was accompanied by Prof. Bedangadas Mohanty, Deputy Spokesperson of the ALICE collaboration and Senior Professor at NISER, Bhubaneswar.

Prof. van Leeuwen, an expert in high-energy heavy-ion physics and quark–gluon plasma research, holds a Ph.D. from Nikhef and Utrecht University. He has worked with the STAR experiment at RHIC and contributed extensively to ALICE’s detector upgrades and physics programmes. Recipient of the NWO Vici grant in 2018, he led the ALICE FoCal upgrade project and accepted the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics on behalf of the ALICE Collaboration.