More On The International Linear Collider

paragon_au writes "The UK Independent is reporting that details for a purposed 40km long international Linear Collider have been released by 'An international panel of particle physicists [that] decided the high-energy linear collider - a £3bn machine for smashing matter against antimatter - will use revolutionary superconducting technology to shed light on the origin and nature of the universe. Plans for the International Linear Collider have still to be finalised but scientists hope that construction of the underground machine will begin in six years.'"

Comments

Why not revive the SSC?

[twiddlingbits]

THe old Superconducting SuperCollider (SSC) is still there, half built in Texas. All the buildings are still intact and the tunnels are still there (just closed off). Would THAT be cheaper. As I recall it was also about 40km in length. I live near that site and I'm sure that we could make someone a HECK of a deal on the site. Of course there are people living nearby now but it's not going to be a hazard. IIRC, The collider at Stanford (SLAC) goes under houses, campus bldgs and a freeway. Oh right, I forgot, common sense and high-energy high $$$ physics projects don't go together.

Re:Why not revive the SSC?

[Ev0lution]

The SSC was a circular collider, not a linear collider, so it isn't a direct replacement. ILC would study collisions between electrons and positrons. With circular colliders, one problem is that particles lose energy as they go round the ring (due to synchnotron radiation). As the energy increase these losses also increase. This is less of a problem for heavy particles (e.g. proton-antiproton) collisions, but circular colliders don't scale well for electron-positron collisions, hence the need for a linear collider.

Re:Why not revive the SSC?

[vondo]

Magnet's don't boost the energy, they only bend the particles. The RF cavities boost the energy. So, with better magnets, you can build a smaller, more powerful proton accelerator, but they don't help you with an electron accelerator.

The problem with an electron accelerator is that energy is lost due to the bend radius and unless you have a very large accelerator, you quickly get to the point where energy is coming out just as fast as you can put it in. Solution: an infinite-bend-radius (linear accelerator).

What I haven't seen mentioned here yet is that we use both types of accelerators (proton and electron) for different reasons. Protons colliding give the highest energies and the collisions produce a wide variety of particles and interactions at a variety of interaction energies. Electron collisions are much cleaner, but tend to be at lower energies and rates. (This is because electrons are fundamental particles but protons are made of 3 quarks each and it's really the quarks colliding.) But, if you know the energy (mass) of the particle you want to study, you can produce them reliably and in a very clean environment so you can study them more precisely.

I can hear the planning

[iamdrscience]

I can hear the scientists planning this now...

"Okay, we'll make this like, really huge collider and we'll smash matter and anti-matter together really fast, like SSSSKRKKRAASSSH. Oh man, this will be so awesome."

More news

[daveschroeder]

German lab wins linear collider contest

Particle physicists have chosen to base the proposed International Linear Collider on superconducting technology developed by an international collaboration centred on the DESY lab in Germany. The superconducting approach was chosen by an international panel ahead of a rival technology developed at Stanford in the US and the KEK lab in Japan. The eagerly-awaited decision was announced at the International Conference on High Energy Physics in Beijing today.

The 30-km-long International Linear Collider (ILC) will collide electrons and positrons together at energies of at least 500 billion electron volts. Particle physicists will use the ILC to make detailed studies of the Higgs boson and any other new particles, such as supersymmetric particles, that might be discovered at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It is envisaged that the ILC will turn on by around the middle of the next decade, about eight years after the start up of the LHC, which is currently being built at CERN in Geneva.

Is this the answer to God, the universe and all that?

Physicists plan £3bn experiment in a 20-mile long tunnel

They call it the God particle: a mysterious sub-atomic fragment that permeates the entire universe and explains how everything is the way it is. Nobody has ever seen the God particle; some say it doesn't exist but, in the ultimate leap of faith, physicists across the world are preparing to build one of the most ambitious and expensive science experiments the world has ever seen to try to find it.

ITER Impasse Illustrates Challenge of Site Selection

...indeed, site selection is often a thorny matter, even for scientific projects not as costly or international as ITER or the next-generation linear collider.

The SSC?

[daveschroeder]

The SSC was originally intended to be a 54 mi (87 km) ring. 14 miles of tunnel were complete.

Despite the incredible importance of this research - not to mention basic research in general - it was dismissed as a boondoggle and sandbox for particle physicists.

More reading: Science and Patriotism run amok in Texas

Answers.

[SKorvus]

You're absolutely right: humanity is facing some immediate, pressing problems: the environment, overpopulation, soil & water depletion, and disease as you mentioned.

For the most part however, these are human problems, with human solutions. We know what causes overpopulation, and that in turn results in environmental damage, starvation etc. We also know what causes AIDs; and its spread is more a result of governmental unwillingness to educate their populations and promote safe sexual practices, than lack of medical technology. Likewise, cancer is largely a Western disease, and diet & lifestyle plays a large part in the likelihood one gets it: it's for the most part preventable.

But here we are, in a Universe. While we've made significant progress, we still don't really know what the hell it is. What are the rules? What makes everything happen? How did it come to be? Pursuing the answers to these fundamental questions is natural human curiosity, and the same drive that has led to many of our other scientific and technological advancements.

Knowing the answers may not be of use to the average person, other than possibly having another neat formula to put on T-shirts. But having a complete model of how the universe works, may result in many spin-off technologies. I'm speculating, but they may include things like quantum propulsion, true nanoscale engineering, new materials development... who knows.

Politicians are going to be idiots and let people die of preventable diseases, breed until they wipe out the natural world, etc. But should particle physicists simple twiddle their thumbs while humanity consumes itself; or busy themselves seeking a better understanding of the cosmos we inhabit, and perhaps giving us better tools to improve our world and ourselves?

Because other sciences hang off physics

[panurge]

Cutting edge physics research cannot be guaranteed to have spin offs. This is because real science is (duh) experimental. However, let's just follow through one particular train of thought:

1. Research into cancer and AIDS is a branch of biochemistry.
2. Biochemistry depends on science like DNA sequencing and protein folding
3. DNA sequencing and protein folding need fast computers
4. Fast computers need leading-edge engineering and physics.
5. The structure of DNA was clarified partly as a result of X-ray analysis
6. The discovery of X-rays was a byproduct of pure research into conduction of electricity in gases

We have no way to be certain that deeper insights into the fundamental structure of matter will contribute to solving other biological problems - but we have no ay to find out other than to do it.

You might also like to consider that $3billion is less than drug companies spend on advertising and promotion every year.

Re:The final frontier

[SKorvus]

I agree. One really exciting conceptual propulsion system is the idea of being able to push against the quantum vacuum that underlies all of reality.

A simplistic metaphor would be to imagine someone in zero-G trying to move around; then putting them in water and letting them swim. Chemical propulsion means you have to carry all the mass with you that you push against in order to propel yourself. With "Space Drive", you would still need to expend energy; but presumably much less than with current methods.

Nasa: Ideas Based On What We'd Like To Achieve
Nasa: Some Emerging Possibilities

how this works

[Anonymous Coward]

FROM A PHYSICIST:

First Why. Natural Science is a lot like mining. Physicists discover things about nature. They attempt to put together an idea of how the fundamental works, both large and small, and create methods to predict phenomena based on these ideas. Applied Physicists and Engineers then take this knowledge and ask themselves the question "How might I use this for mankinds advantage". A simple example is the transister. The transistor could be the most powerful invention of the last century. But, without the knowledge of quantum mechanics discovered by natural physicists the transistor would never be. Natural physicists mine for the knowledge that will be later used for application. Their are countless examples of this from maxwell and wireless applicatons, certainly quantum mechanics and solid state technology, and even general relativity and GPS satellites.

Second Linear Collider vs SSC, etc: The linear collider is not a discovery machine per se. It is a precision measurement machine meant to refine knowledge about discoveries that will be made by the Large Hadron Collider which is being built in Europe. Natural physics isn't about finding a particle alone. This does nothing for us. It's about building and understanding a model of nature that can later be used to predict phenomena as accurately as possible. Neither of these machines is focused on a single particle (HIGGS, SUSY, etc.) Saying so is the equivalent of saying we're building a workbench to put together only rocking chairs. Our 'workbench' is an experiment meant to study interactions spanning the entire current model of nature. It is an expensive tool, but keep in mind once it is built it will last 20-30 years (fermilab as an example). I don't believe it's very expensice considering this keeps the flow of technology rolling.

Superconducting: The magnets proposed are revolutionary because they will be at 2 kelvin. Fermilab operates at 70+.

Re:Yay No Curves

[Gil-galad55]

Actually, curves do allow electrons. It's just that an accelerating particle radiates energy (synchrotron radiation), and that radiation increases exponentially as mass decreases. The LHC uses protons because their much larger mass (~1000 greater) siginificantly decreases synchrotron radiation. The previous accelerator at CERN, the LEP, occuped the same tunnel and used electrons and positrons. However, while the LEP could only reach energies of ~200 GeV, the LHC aims for 27 TeV. A linear accelerator nips the problem of synchrotron radiation in the bud.