This is an exciting and pivotal time for particle physics, where decisions that will be taken in the coming years will shape the long-term future of the field. In this colloquium, I will give a personal perspective on the status of particle physics and the prospects for the next ten years and beyond. I will discuss the importance of the Higgs boson and will give particular emphasis on the role of CERN in our exploration of the fundamental nature of the universe, both today and tomorrow. This colloquium will be largely at a non-technical level and is intended to be accessible to a broad audience.

In this talk, I will discuss new probes of neutrino interactions in cosmology, specifically using the cosmic microwave background (CMB). A phase shift in the acoustic oscillations of CMB spectra is a characteristic signature of the presence of non-photon species with a sound speed different from that of the photons. Focusing on neutrino self-interactions and dark matter neutrino interactions, I will demonstrate how these interactions imprint changes in the acoustic phase shift and can be probed using data. I will exhibit the potential of future CMB and 21-cm surveys to probe these interactions. I will also discuss models to realize strong neutrino self-interaction cosmology without violating stringent laboratory and BBN constraints.

The top quark is the heaviest elementary particle known to date. With this very large mass come interesting consequences, like its extremely short lifetime. Unlike other quarks, which can form bound states, the top quarks lifetime does not allow for a stable bond. If two top quarks are produced almost at rest however, they can briefly exchange gluons before they then decay individually. This pseudo-bound state was already predicted in 1987, before the top quark was even discovered. It was thought to be impossible to measure this state at the LHC, as it constitutes less than 1% of the total production rate and is difficult to see in the data. With improved analysis techniques and theoretical predictions however, the CMS and ATLAS experiments have recently observed an excess of data close to the production threshold. This presentation will discuss these new measurements and shed some light on the fleeting connection between the two top quarks.

High-resolution spectroscopic measurements in few-electron atoms and molecules are increasingly used as a means to test the foundations of the theory of atomic and molecular structure. Modern first-principles calculations of the energy-level structure of few-electron atomic and molecular systems consider all known interactions [1-4]. Systematic comparisons of the results of such calculations with precise spectroscopic measurements in simple atoms and molecules such as H, He, H2+, H2 and He2+ aim at searching for effects not yet included in the theory (see, e.g., Refs. [5,6]) and at reducing the uncertainties of physical constants, (see e.g., Refs. [7,8]). This talk will present precision spectroscopic measurements of transitions to high Rydberg states of H, He, and H2, which we use to determine accurate values of their ionization energies and, in the case of H2, also of the spin-rovibrational energy-level structure of H2+. The talk will describe our experimental strategy to overcome limitations in the precision and accuracy of the measurements originating from the Doppler effect, the Stark effect, and the laser-frequency calibration. The experimental results will then be compared with the results of first-principles calculations that include the treatment of finite-nuclear-size effects and relativistic and quantum-electrodynamics corrections up to high order in the fine-structure constant. Recent aspects of these investigations include a new determination of the Rydberg constant [9] as a contribution to the resolution of the proton-size puzzle [10], a new method to record Doppler-free single-photon excitation spectra in the visible and the UV spectral ranges [11], a “zero-quantum-defect” method to determine the energy-level structure of homonuclear diatomic molecular ions such as H2+ [12], and a 9 discrepancy between theory and experiment in the ionization energies of metastable (1s2s 3S1) 4He [13] and 3He [14]. [1] E. Tiesinga, P. J. Mohr, D. B. Newell, and B. N. Taylor, Rev. Mod. Phys. 93, 025010 (2021) [2] V. Korobov, L. Hilico and J.-Ph. Karr, Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 233001 (2017) [3] V. Patkos, V. A. Yerokhin, and K. Pachucki, Phys. Rev. A 103, 042809 (2021) [4] M. Puchalski, J. Komasa, P. Czachorowski, and K. Pachucki, Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 103003 (2019) [5] C. Delaunay et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 121801 (2023) [6] M. Germann et al., Phys. Rev. Res. 3, L022028 (2021) [7] A. Grinin et al., Science 370(6520), 1061-1066 (2020) [8] S. Schiller, J.-Ph. Karr, Phys. Rev. A 109, 042825 (2024) [9] S. Scheidegger, and F. Merkt, Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 113001 (2024) [10] R. Pohl et al., Nature (London) 466, 213 (2010); A. Antognini et al., Science 339(6118), 417 (2013) [11] G. Clausen, S. Scheidegger, J. A. Agner, H. Schmutz, and F. Merkt, Phys. Rev. Lett. 131, 103001 (2023) [12] I. Doran, N. Hölsch, M. Beyer, and F. Merkt, Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 073001 (2024) [13] G. Clausen, K. Gamlin, J. A. Agner, H. Schmutz, and F. Merkt, Phys. Rev. A 111, 012817 (2025) [14] G. Clausen and F. Merkt, Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 223001 (2025)