Cordis News, EU
Aug 23 2004
Superconducting technology selected for International Linear Collider
[Date: 2004-08-23]
A key decision on the technology to be used for the future
international particle accelerator has been made, clearing the way
for work on the project to commence.
An international panel of physicists recommended the use of
superconducting accelerating structures that operate at 2 Kelvin for
the International Linear Collider (ILC), rather than ‘X-band’
accelerating structures that operate at room temperature. The
recommendation was accepted by the International Committee for Future
Accelerators at a conference in Beijing, China, on 20 August.
‘Both the ‘warm’ X-band technology and the ‘cold’ superconducting
technology would work for a linear collider,’ said the chair of the
panel charged with making a recommendation, Barry Barish. ‘Each
offers its own advantages, and each represents many years of R&D
[research and development] by teams of extremely talented and
dedicated scientists and engineers. At this stage it would be too
costly and time consuming to develop both technologies toward
construction.’
The ‘winning’ technology was developed by the TESLA consortium, which
brings together researchers from Armenia, China, Finland, France,
Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the
US. As stated in the recommendation text, however, the selection of
one technology over another is based entirely on the technology, and
not on design. ‘We expect the final design to be developed by a team
drawn from the combined warm and cold linear collider communities,
taking full advantage of the experience and expertise of both.’
The superconducting technology uses L-band (1.3GHz) radio frequency
power for accelerating the electron and positron beams in the two
opposing linear accelerators that make up the collider. The
advantages of this technology, outlined in the recommendation,
include: a large cavity aperture and long bunch interval that
simplify operations, reduce sensitivity to ground motion, permit
inter-bunch feedback and may enable increased beam current; the
largest technical cost elements – the main linac and rf systems – are
of comparatively lower risk; and the use of superconducting cavities
significantly reduces power consumption.
The collider will first be used to find the Higgs boson –
hypothetical elementary particles predicted by the Standard Model of
particle physics – or any alternative mechanism that takes its place.
If it exists, the Higgs boson should be discovered at the Large
Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, but measuring
its properties with precision will require a TeV-scale
electron-positron linear collider.
But work on the Higgs particle will be ‘just the beginning’,
according to Hirotaka Sugawara, also a member of the recommendation
panel. ‘We anticipate that some of the tantalising superparticles
will be within the range of discovery, opening the door to an
understanding of one of the great mysteries of the universe – dark
matter. We may also be able to probe extra space-time dimensions,
which have so far eluded us,’ he said.
Now that a decision has been made, the international particle physics
community can begin work on a design for the linear collider. At the
same time, science funding agencies from Europe and elsewhere must
reach an agreement on the funding of the project.
For further information on the International Linear Collider, please
visit:
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress