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International Linear Collider
The International Linear Collider is a proposed new accelerator designed to work in concert with the LHC to discover the physics of the Terascale and beyond. The ILC would consist of two linear accelerators, each some 20 kilometers long, aimed at each other, hurling beams of electrons and positrons toward each other at nearly the speed of light.
When electrons and positrons accelerate in a circle, they lose energy. The higher the acceleration energy, the more energy the electrons lose. At very high energies, a circular electron accelerator is no longer an option; too much energy is wasted. The solution is a straight-line collider.
In the design for the ILC, some 10 billion electrons and positrons are crammed into beams approximately 3 nanometers thick. Positrons start from one end of the collider, electrons from the other. As the particles speed along the length of the accelerator, superconducting accelerating cavities give them more and more energy, until they meet in an intense crossfire of collisions. The energy of the ILC’s beam could be adjusted to home in on phenomena of interest. ILC beams would also be polarized, adding power to the subsequent data analysis.
The ILC Global Design Effort will establish the design of the ILC, focusing the efforts of hundreds of accelerator scientists and particle physicists in the Americas, Europe and Asia. The ILC will be designed, funded, managed and operated as a fully international scientific project. |
