to: Peter ROSER
from: Maria spiropulu
subject: homework
date: 10/29/03
cc:
why, when, which linear collider
The HEP lab directors and other luminaries of the field must fill in the blank in the following: We must/will build a TeV linear collider in order to______. The statement in the blank should be three sentences at the most (that excludes wise committees that take years and produce huge stacks of reports that nobody can and does read).
There is some facts in the international HEP standing today:
1. CERN muddling through the financial problems is bringing LHC to completion by 2007 and operation by 2008.
2. CERN has a further plan on the next step: a luminosity and energy upgrade of the LHC (SLHC), a 3 TeV linear electron collider that would match the LHC energy. Other than the LHC, CERN spends money on two and two only R&D projects: CLIC and proton driver.
3. Asia/Japan strengthens their neutrino program and keeps steady funding for HEP
4. Germany approved the FEL at DESY but no billion $ TESLA
5. CERN does not want to see another international laboratory in Europe and much less a linear collider in Germany. However the statement of the DG was that CERN would contribute up to 10% of the cost of a sub-TeV linear collider [provided it would not be in europe]. I have to find what is the part that Germany contributes to CERN and figure if the $100 M is less than Germany’s contribution over the time prescribed.
6. It is fair to say that the cold TESLA technology has been shown to work at a good confidence level for the cm energy up to ~1 TeV . It is also fair to say that the technology is new and cool.
Coming to the USA: it is a good opportunity to use the labs we have – in some sort of togetherness spirit, if we bring ourselves to think more about physics and less about credits – as a foundation of a big international accelerator collider program. It is obvious that the place is FNAL. With a trilateral agreement between Germany-US-Japan which translates directly in a US-Europe-Asia collaboration a TeV linear collider is affordable: Japan can offer the dumping ring tech, SLAC the final focusing, DESY the TESLA tech, and FNAL the venue. It sounds like a good gig, no matter how you shake it down.
To fill the blank above I would say that a TeV linear collider can probe precisely the effective Planck scale while the LHC probes precisely the TeV scale.
Also the TeV linear collider can be done now. The technology is in place: with a decision and a collaboration and with some more R&D we can be ready to start before 2007. FNAL will not be a flourishing/alive accelerator lab if we have to wait for the LHC even if one started planning the VLHC now. The great FNAL hadron physicists who want a VLHC are flattered by the SLHC thoughts of the Europeans and they can have an opportunity for great contributions. As a matter of science research if there is no new project and no new money things are going south. The danger is that if the US hep program goes that route, the rest of the hep world will almost necessarily follow –
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