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International Linear Collider Design Ready To Go

Posted by Unknown on from the better-atom-smashing-through-science dept.

Via El Reg comes news that the International Linear Collider's Technical Design Report is finished, leaving only funding in the way of construction. From the article: "A five volume report containing the plans for the International Linear Collider has been handed over to the International Committee for Future Accelerators (ICFA) for approval. The Technical Design Report contains costings for the project, along with the design of the new collider. The new machine is significantly more powerful than the hoary European Large Hadron Collider and is likely to be sited in Japan, because the Pacific island nation has reportedly offered to pay for half of the construction costs. ... Jonathan Bagger, chair of the International Linear Collider Steering Committee, said the particle collider was 'ready to go.' 'The publication of the Technical Design Report represents a major accomplishment,' he continued. ... The ILC consists of two linear accelerators facing each other. " A few years late, but hopefully not never.

5 of 71 comments (clear)

  1. In Japan?! by Toad-san · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why build a super-expensive super-elaborate device, absolutely dependent on alignment and all that .. in a place where (1) land could hardly be less available or more expensive, (2) it tends to MOVE all the time (earthquakes, volcanoes, whatever), (3) it'll cost a bloody fortune for any visitors to visit.

    Why not on some steppe somewhere, or a big flat desert (where there's at least sand for the concrete)?

    1. Re:In Japan?! by paiute · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Those are all good reasons, but they will build it in your backyard behind the shed if you pay half of the cost.

      --
      If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
    2. Re:In Japan?! by loufoque · · Score: 4, Informative

      Japan is paying for half the fees because having it there would be beneficial to them for obvious reasons.
      Their government is willing to invest great quantities of money to bolster up their physics research sector.

      Those devices are built deep underground, so there is no need to purchase that much land and effects of tectonic activity are minimal.

    3. Re:In Japan?! by the+gnat · · Score: 4, Informative

      You seriously think the academics were more concerned about prestige than lined pockets?

      You haven't met many academic scientists, have you? A long-term job at a major research institution pays enough for a comfortable, secure, upper-middle-class 1st-world lifestyle (and equally comfortable retirement), and most scientists are entirely content with that as long as their job description basically involves geeking out over obscure theory for days on end. If they wanted to line their pockets there are far better ways to do this - the people who really care about money figure out very early that staying in academia is not the most efficient way to get rich. (One of the scientists who used to work on the project I'm on ended up at Goldman Sachs.) But some academics will do pretty nearly anything short of murder for a Nobel prize if they smell an opportunity.

  2. Why it's linear by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Just to be clear: the reason it's a linear collider and not circular is for synchrotron radiation losses.

    The largest circular lepton collider was LEP (the Large Electron/Positron collider, formerly housed in the now-LHC tunnel) ran at 100GeV/beam. They lost about 2% of the beam energy every turn, which has to be replenished. If you tried to build a circular collider the same circumference as LEP, but run it at the ILC energy of 250GeV/beam, you'd lose about 30% of your energy on every turn. That's not sustainable.

    You could argue that you can go to a bigger-diameter ring, but once you're above 30km circumference you'll have to dig more tunnel than for the ILC anyway, so you can't win. That's why it's a linear collider.

    -Scientist on the ILC team