The Tevatron - The Collider That Refuses To Go Away

There might still be some life left in that big old lady. The Dept. of Energy is now requesting a budget that will allow the Tevatron to run until 2011. With the LHC being delayed due to the mishap, the race to be the first to detect the Higgs is still the major motivation for the Tevatron to continue running.

There is also a clear message by William Brinkman, head of DOE's Office of Science, on the fate of the International Linear Collider.

Brinkman, who took over the $4.9 billion science office in late June, also had some harsh words for advocates of the International Linear Collider, a 30-kilometer-long straight-shot particle smasher that would study in detail the new particles and phenomena physicists hope to glimpse at the LHC. "With all the contingencies, you're talking about $20 billion. In my opinion, that price pushes it way out into the future, and onto the backburner."

I'd say that the ILC in its current form, for all practical purposes, is DEAD, at least here in the US. It is also interesting that the muon collider is now back, considering that that too was thought to be dead several years ago. Now it is clear that, if the Higgs is found, either at the Tevatron or the LHC, an electron-positron linear collider will be needed to refine the discovery. It is just that the ILC design as it is now will probably not get a lot of support, at least not from the DOE.

Zz.