Some 340 participants from science and industry attended the Future Circular Collider (FCC) week [http://cern.ch/fccw2015] in Washington DC from 23 to 27 March. Contributions – 219 in total – from all areas of the study showcased both the progress achieved and the challenges ahead.
The FCC-hh and FCC-ee machine studies are progressing well in preparation for critical choices to achieve the performance and availability goals. The conference showed that designing machines which meet the required parameters calls for a considerable R&D effort far beyond the current state of the art. Physicists, engineers and representatives from industry agreed on the significant technological advances needed for high-field superconducting magnets, superconducting RF cavities, efficient RF power sources and other key technologies. This R&D effort should be launched now in order to be ready for the construction of new machines in the second half of the 2030s.
The recently approved EuroCirCol EU Horizon 2020 Grant Agreement targets core aspects of the hadron collider, such as the optics design for the arcs and insertion regions, and the feasibility study of key technologies such as the 16 T main dipole magnets and the cryogenic beam vacuum system.
Concurrently with the developments in accelerator design and technology there has been substantial progress on the geology studies for a tunnel in the Geneva area, linked to the CERN accelerator complex. The studies are based on 93 km and 100 km scenarios, both of which fit the geographical conditions. The delegates discussed installation, global computing infrastructures beyond the Grid, controls and machine protection, as well as operational issues such as energy-consumption and safety.
The unique physics capabilities of the FCC machines and their discovery potential will further be elaborated and documented . Working groups have already identified several areas where improved theoretical calculations or additional experimental inputs are required to explore physics both inside and outside the scope of the Standard Model.
A talk by US congressman Bill Foster encouraged the high-energy physicists in the audience to “never be shy in standing up for the unique nature of their field and never be afraid of big numbers”. This and other talks revealed that the US particle and accelerator communities are eager to collaborate in the global R&D effort, focusing on studies of superconducting materials and designs for high-field magnets, suitable for a proton-proton collider reaching an energy of 100 TeV in the centre of mass. True technological and manufacturing breakthroughs are needed to meet performance and cost goals.
FCC Study leader Michael Benedikt pointed out that 2015 should be the year in which the worldwide collaboration reaches consensus on the baseline parameters and concepts, and fleshes out the collider layout and injector and infrastructure concepts. “It is time to put a Nb3Sn 16 T magnet programme on solid feet, to define and launch other selected technology R&D programmes”, he says. The FCC community will reinforce the physics and detector simulations, and pursue Machine Detector Interface and experiment studies. The next FCC Week will take place in Rome, Italy, in 2016.