CERN outlines next-gen circular collider
17 Jan 2019 by Evoluted New Media
CERN has submitted proposals for the Future Circular Collider (FCC), a particle accelerator 10 times as powerful as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
The four-volume document presents different options for a 100km circular collider near Geneva that would reach energies of 100 TeV and allow studies of how Higgs particles interact.
As outlined in the report, the FCC would provide electron-positron, proton-proton and ion-ion collisions at unprecedented energies and intensities, with the possibility of electron-proton and electon-ion collisions.
The new proton collider, dubbed the Higgs factory, would outsize the 26km LHC by almost four times and significantly expand our knowledge of matter and the universe, according to CERN.
CERN Director for Research and Computing, Eckhard Elsen: “Proton colliders have been the tool-of-choice for generations to venture new physics at the smallest scale. A large proton collider would present a leap forward in this exploration and decisively extend the physics programme beyond results provided by the LHC and a possible electron-positron collider.”
The proposed FCC would be active for 15 to 20 years from around 2040, around the time the LHC comes offline. It would cost around €9 billion, including €5 million for civil engineering work on the tunnel. The first step would be the building of a 90 to 365 GeV electron-positron machine with high luminosity, CERN said.
RN Director for Accelerators and Technology, Frédérick Bordry said: “The FCC timeline foresees starting with an electron-positron machine, just as LEP preceded the LHC. This would enable a rich programme to benefit the particle physics community throughout the twenty-first century.”
A superconducting proton machine that would afterwards use the same tunnel is estimated at around €15 billion and would start operation in the late 2050s.
Proposals for the FCC involved more than 1,300 contributors from 150 universities, research institutes and industrial partners, who participated in design and R&D of new technologies to prepare for a future circular collider.
The particle physics community also will be updating the European Strategy for Particle Physics, which forms the cornerstone of Europe’s decision-making in the field.
The possibility of a future circular collider will be examined during the update, together with the other post-LHC collider option at CERN, the CLIC linear collider.
