The future of the next circular collider to follow up the LHC is currently on the table. The Future Circular Collider (FCC) is envisioned to be 80-100 km in circumference (as compared to 27 km for the LHC) and reaching energy as high as 100 TeV (as compared to 13 TeV for the LHC).
Now you may think that this is way too early to think about such a thing, especially when the LHC is still in its prime and probably will be operating for a very long time. But planning and building one of these things take decades. As stated at the end of the article, the LHC itself took about 30 years from its planning stage all the way to its first operation. So you can't simply decide to get one of these built and hope to have it ready in a couple of years. It is the ultimate in long-term planning. No instant gratification here.
In the meantime, the next big project in high-energy physics collider is a linear collider, some form of the International Linear Collider that has been tossed around for many years. China and Japan look to still be the most likely place where this will be built. I do not foresee the US being a leading candidate during the next 4 years for any of these big, international facilities requiring multinational effort.
Zz.
No comments:
Post a Comment