Onward and upward into the terascale
The technical design of the International Linear Collider is nearing completion, and it comes with a stipulation: If the Large Hadron Collider should direct scientists to an energy range beyond what the ILC accommodates, they should refer to its 1-teraelectronvolt contingency plan.
Over the next several months, researchers will complete a preliminary study of the 1-TeV ILC as an energy-doubling upgrade of the current 500-gigaelectronvolt (GeV) technical design. Having developed the outline for a possible upgrade from day one, researchers are now conceptually defining the elements of a higher-energy machine.
“Our focus has been very strongly on designing the best 500-GeV machine we can,” said Global Design Effort (GDE) Project Manager Nicholas Walker. “At the same time, we do have to do a little more work on the TeV upgrade than we did for it in the Reference Design Report,” he said, referring to the 2007 document.
Upgrade parameters are largely based on a cavity gradient goal of 45 megavolts per metre (MV/m) and a power consumption limit of 300 megawatts (MW) for operating the collider. Using these straw man parameters as a foundation, scientists will continue to develop them for the forthcoming ILC Technical Design Report (TDR) using LHC results, cost studies and technical reviews as guides.
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—Leah Hesla
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