CERN plans super-accelerator, 10 times more powerful than current one

The Geneva based particle physics research center CERN is proposing an accelerator that is almost four times longer and ten times more powerful than the Large Hadron Collider, BBC reports.

CERN has published its ideas for a successor to the LHC, given the working name of Future Circular Collider (FCC), which would cost nine to 21 billion euros. The aim is to have the FCC hunting for new sub-atomic particles by 2050.

The existing collider, which started up in 2008, smashes protons together in a 27-km circuit beneath the Swiss-French border. It helped scientists discover the long-sought Higgs boson — a particle that supplied the missing piece of the standard model of physics by explaining why objects have mass, Reuters writes.

The FCC, or Future Circular Collider, proposed by more than 150 universities and science institutes, would be a huge tubular circuit almost four times as long, with 10 times more power than the LHC at CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Physics.

The LHC is expected to keep running until around 2036-2040, Reuters adds.

– Any big machine for the future will be a global machine – said Arnaud Marsollier, head of media relations at CERN.

– No one expects to have two 100-km colliders built in the next 20 years, so if one is built in China, maybe Europe will do something else – he adds.

The decision on whether to go ahead with the FCC is effectively part of an international race to host the LHC’s successor, with China, Japan, the United States and Europe all interested, Reuters writes.

China has floated plans for its own 100-km collider, but has not yet confirmed it will go ahead, and Japan is expected to take a decision on a linear collider in March.

CERN Geneve

CERN

the European Center for Nuclear Physics

Arnaud Marsollier

development of new particle accelerator

Future Circular Collider

FCC

Large Hadron Collider

LHC