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Prabhakar Palni
Assistant Professor
School of Physical Sciences, IIT Mandi
Himachal Pradesh, India


Research Activities


I am an experimental particle physicist and currently an Assistant Professor at the School of Physical Sciences, IIT Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, India. My research is driven by curiosity about the underlying structure of the universe and the forces that govern the interactions of matter. I am an active member of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, one of the most sophisticated and high-energy experimental facilities in the world. Within the CMS collaboration, my research is centered on probing the Standard Model of particle physics and searching for evidence of physics Beyond the Standard Model.
In parallel, I contribute to the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) program as part of the EPIC detector collaboration at Brookhaven National Laboratory, which aims to explore the internal structure and dynamics of nucleons and the properties of visible matter, beginning with its most fundamental constituents, quarks & gluons.

In the past, I focused on studying the production of top quark pairs (tt-bar) in proton-lead collisions and measuring photon-induced processes in ultra-peripheral heavy-ion collisions using the ATLAS detector. In 2019, we discovered light-by-light scattering in heavy-ion collisions for the first time. Before joining the ATLAS collaboration, I worked with the ALICE experiment at the LHC, where I studied Multiple Parton Interactions (MPI) and the multiplicity dependence of charged particle and strange hadron production in proton-proton collisions. My doctoral research focused on searching for a heavy bottom baryon resonance state, Λ_b^{*0}, as predicted by the Standard Model, using data from the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF). In 2013, we found the first evidence of this resonance state at Fermilab.

My current research interests include:


Beyond addressing fundamental questions in high-energy physics, I am actively engaged in R&D efforts aimed at advancing Silicon particle detector development for better timing and spatial resolution, and radiation-tolerant detectors. My work aims to bridge experimental analysis, theoretical modeling or phenomenology, and detector instruction to help deepen our understanding of the universe at the most elementary level.

Key Publications




Complete list of my publications can be found here on inSPIRE

Graduate Courses Taught at the IIT Mandi




Graduate Courses Taught at the Goa University




Graduate Courses taught at the AGH University



News and Events


A Brief Biographical Sketch


I grew up in a picturesque town in northern Goa, where my academic journey began with a Bachelor's degree in Physics from St. Xavier’s College in 2011. I then moved to Mumbai to pursue a Master’s degree in Physics in 2014, which further deepened my interest in experimental research. Following my master's, I joined IIT Guwahati as a Junior Research Fellow for two years. In pursuit of advanced research opportunities in astrophysics, cosmology, and particle physics, I moved to the United States to begin my PhD in Experimental High Energy Physics at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. After completing my PhD in 2014, I took up a position as a Visiting Scholar at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) in Michigan, contributing to the Symmetry Energy Project. I then joined the ALICE experiment in 2015 at Central China Normal University (CCNU) in Wuhan, China, where I spent several stimulating years working on Multiple Parton Interactions, strangeness productions, and multiplicity-dependent final states in small systems.

In 2018, I became part of the ATLAS experiment, focusing on light-by-light scattering in ultra-peripheral collisions and top quark pair production in proton-lead (p+Pb) collisions. My research continued at AGH University in Poland, where I worked for nearly two and a half years before returning to my roots in Goa. In August 2020, I joined Goa University as an Assistant Professor, where I taught and conducted research for over two years. I am now a faculty member at IIT Mandi, continuing my work in experimental particle physics and particle detector development.


My Hobbies


Outside of physics, I have a deep passion for cricket and enjoy playing a variety of sports like badminton, tennis, and football. I proudly represented the IIT Mandi cricket team and was part of the squad that won the gold medal at the Inter-IIT Tournament at IIT Gandhinagar in 2023. I'm also a member of the CERN Cricket Club and had the unique honor of representing the Switzerland national cricket team in the Euro Twenty20 Cup in 2018. During my time at the University of New Mexico, I played several seasons for UNMCC in the Colorado Cricket League, contributing both on and off the field.


Contact Me:


The best way to contact me is via email

Email: prabhakar.palni@cern.ch

Office: FB1, FRC Building, IIT Mandi, Mandi, Himachal Pradesh 175005

Office Phone: +(91) 1905-267229