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China Plans Particle Colliders That Would Dwarf CERN's LHC
ananyo (2519492) writes Scientists at the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) in Beijing, working with international collaborators, are planning to build a "Higgs factory" by 2028 — a 52-kilometer underground ring that would smash together electrons and positrons. Collisions of these fundamental particles would allow the Higgs boson to be studied with greater precision than at the much smaller (27 km) Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Europe's particle-physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland. Physicists say that the proposed US$3-billion machine is within technological grasp and is considered conservative in scope and cost. But China hopes that it would also be a stepping stone to a next-generation collider — a super proton-proton collider — in the same tunnel. The machine would be a big leap for China. The country's biggest current collider is just 240 meters in circumference.
So I said, "Super-collider? I just met her!" [audience laughs] And then they built the super collider. - Humorbot 5.0
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Cern had how many set backs while trying to power the thing up in the early stages of testing? With all the corruption China has I wonder how this will compare.
This is starting to get close to the Superconducting Super-Collider size. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
The problem with Chinese subatomic particles is that one half-life later you are ready for more.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Those are circumferences, not diameters.
Every country has make-work projects, some of them even have additional benefits - the EU is currently reviewing a energy savings plan where one of the main points is "costs will be offset by the jobs created to implement this directive". Make-work.
In reality, the Chinese project is definitely not make-work if they plan to do actual research. The "ghost cities" you talk about are actually gradually filling up as more population moves from rural settings into the cities - this has been a long term goal of the Chinese government, but their "long terms" are a fair longer than the "around next election time" terms that westerners tend to think in.
If you want to see some real "ghost cities" there are plenty in Spain, entire towns and cities, with airports, which were built to sustain the Spanish building industry during the 2008-2013 period, and the properties have never been put on the market.
The cost of the LHC has been estimated at $9 billion. I know there are different labor costs between Europe and China, but there are lots of costs that can't easily be brought down. The tunnel's gonna need a whole lot of concrete, steel, etc. - global commodities whose cost doesn't vary that much by geography. The LHC is packed to the gills with custom components: everything from the the superconducting magnets to the RF generators to the detectors to the massive computing systems to sift through all the subatomic debris. Even assuming China has the technical expertise to create that custom componentry (a question I can't answer - I simply don't know)...
does it pass even casual scrutiny to think that China can make a collider of twice the size at one-third the cost?
China is big. Saying China is prone to earthquakes is akin to saying the USA is prone to earthquakes.
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
Is not small! Asian collider is good size! Girlfriend say so!
This is a pretty small upgrade from the LEP that used to be in the current LCH tunnel. That went up to 209 GeV and ruled out Higgs masses up to 115 GeV. The Higgs is around 125 Gev, or 9% higher, and the energy of this is supposed to be 240 GeV, or 15% higher.
That makes me wonder if the planned energy is enough for a useful Higgs factory. The ILC is supposed to do 500 GeV and would work well as a Higgs factory. That proposal would be more than twice as expensive though.
It's of course possible the article has it wrong and it's really 240 GeV per beam, adding up to 480.
The origin of the matter-antimatter imbalance in the universe is something that people try to solve using the standard model and indications that charge-parity symmetry breaking occurs in some interactions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... Much larger collides could explore this beyond leptons as well as ideas beyond the standard model such as supersymmetry and string theory and their connection with vacuum energy.
The point the poster made, which I think is legitimate, is that even a very small earthquake could probably be catastrophic for a collider's integrity and alignment.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Or the markets will soon be invaded by cheap made-in-China Higgs bosons. Although swiss-made Higgs are known to be by far more precise and accurate, the cheap chinese bosons will send CERN factory into bankrupt, unless some kind of duty is introduced to slow down foreign particles.
I accept that China is now a leader in science and technology. I wish them the best on this project and I am sure it will yield fantastic science. I just hope by "international collaborators" they mean more than the Russian Federation. As an American, I hope we get in on the action.
Just one thing though: if you are going to go to the trouble to build such a big and expensive machine, why not build a linear collider? I realize it would take more land, but I'm sure they have it and the science would be even better. Correct me if I am wrong, but after the second refit of the LHC, isn't the next big international European science project going to be a big honking linear collider? At that point, it won't matter that China's collider is bigger, you can get more interesting results from a gigantic linear collider. Although the idea of a super-proton collider does tickle me a bit.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
In reality, the Chinese project is definitely not make-work if they plan to do actual research.
True but a circular design for a electron-positron collider is far from the most efficient. At the energies needed to create the Higgs the energy loss caused by bending the electrons around in a ring means that the ring has to be far longer in circumference than a 'one-shot' linear collider would need to be. Worse if we find something even more exciting like Supersymmetry in our next run of the LHC starting this coming March you will never be able to increase the energy of a circular e-p machine to study it whereas with a linear collider you can extend it.
A circular machine only makes sense with heavier particles like protons but I question whether the cost savings of a single tunnel for both an e-p machine and a future proton machine will outweigh the massive increase in the cost of the magnets and accelerating cavities for the e-p machine.
Remember that the accelerator is in a tunnel usually through rock. Unless there is a fault line through the ring - which would be really stupid - the accelerator will be shaken and will need realignment but the damage should not be enormous. They have very successful accelerators in Japan.
The tunnel's gonna need a whole lot of concrete, steel, etc. - global commodities whose cost doesn't vary that much by geography.
And don't actually cost that much.
The LHC is packed to the gills with custom components: everything from the the superconducting magnets to the RF generators to the detectors to the massive computing systems to sift through all the subatomic debris. Even assuming China has the technical expertise to create that custom componentry (a question I can't answer - I simply don't know)...
I doubt they do. And I doubt that lack of technical expertise is actually an obstacle. After all, prior to constructing the LHC, Europe didn't have that expertise either and yet all those devices got built just the same.
does it pass even casual scrutiny to think that China can make a collider of twice the size at one-third the cost?
I bet the EU could do that too. But it'd require changing how they build such things.
The President of the US will proudly announce the Free Education Market, in which all American children unable to afford a Million Dollar College Tuition common among even State Colleges on their own must apply for and accept a College Scholarship Loan from an approved provider in the National Marketplace. All recipients of these scholarships will agree to work for a salary reduced by up to 90% until the cost of the Scholarship is paid back plus interest of up to 20%. All Children who do not obtain a Scholarship from the Free Market will be barred from employment. The White House has hailed this a critical step in returning America to the forefront of the Science and Technology.
I disagree: there is a decades-long history of building similar, though simpler, devices in Europe and the United States. Sure, there was a lot of invention involves and new challenges to tackle, but a lot of the fundamental technologies already existed. More importantly, there was a substantial population of people who had experience in designing such (earlier) technologies, manufacturing them, getting them to work, and maintaining them. China does not have that kind of depth.
LEP operated around 209 GeV in 27Km so this Chinese proposal of 240 GeV at 52Km is.. underwhelming. Realize things like labor cost less in China but this isn't a high rise they are making. LHC cost amost $5B to build. Where is China getting the magnets? I'm not sure US export controls will allow a sale. And then there are those pesky detectors which are technological marvels themselves.
Still unfortunate that we can't scale up anti-proton production to levels necessary for high luminosity.
Cern had how many set backs while trying to power the thing up in the early stages of testing? With all the corruption China has I wonder how this will compare.
Of course CERN had problems - this is not engineering, but science. The big difference between the two being that you call it engineering, when you know in advance how to do, and science when you don't. No doubt, the first time a simple van-der-Graf accellerator was built, they had to overcome a number of problems; now, it is something you'd let a student do, because all the technical problems have been ironed out. And when/if China builds this new cyclotron, they will run into a large number of technical problems; of course they will. No need to start constructing fables about "all the corruption"; all that says is that you are suffering from petty envy.
Do you get those by being bitten by a radioactive gadfly?
Who is John Cabal?
Even assuming China has the technical expertise to create that custom component
China almost certainly has a labor force can make the gear or can hire people who can if there are specific skills needed.
does it pass even casual scrutiny to think that China can make a collider of twice the size at one-third the cost?
No. I'm a cost accountant and I can assure you that China will not enjoy any meaningful cost advantages on a project like this. China might have a minor cost advantage due to cheap labor on the digging portion of the project but it wouldn't be hugely cheaper. The biggest costs will be the gear that goes into the accelerator and China enjoys no meaningful cost advantage there. It's all custom electronics and other stuff which is simply very expensive no matter who does it.
DEAD WRONG! When you have to figure out how to do it, it is engineering. When you can read a manual and know how to do it, it's IKEA. Engineering is building things to solve problems, science is about knowledge NOT building things. Of course, engineering uses science to engineer its solutions, and science uses engineering to acquire more knowledge. In any case, the LHC is a product of engineering, the conclusions after analyzing the data it gathers are science. I know because I'm an engineer with a Ph.D.