Facilities and Experiments
International Linear Collider
The International Linear Collider is a proposed 20 mile long accelerator that will collide electrons and their opposites, positrons. This next-generation collider will complement and extend the discovery potential of the Large Hadron Collider, a proton-proton collider located at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland. With LHC discoveries pointing the way, the ILC—a true precision machine—will help decode the fundamental nature of the universe.
Consisting of two linear accelerators that face each other, the ILC will accelerate some 10 billion electrons and their antiparticles, positrons, toward each other at nearly the speed of light. Superconducting accelerator cavities, operating at temperatures near absolute zero, increase the particles energies until they collide at a highly focused interaction point, nanometers in size (roughly one-ten thousandths the width of a human hair). Physicists expect that this superconducting technology will have other important applications in science, industry, and medicine.
In the center of the machine, two beams collide 14,000 times every second at extremely high energies—500 billion-electron-volts (GeV). Each head-on collision creates a spectacular array of particles that could answer some of the most basic questions about the microscopic universe — such as the nature of particle mass and particle interactions and the number of spatial dimensions. A state-of-the-art detector surrounding the collision region will offer physicists a precise instrument for investigating these fundamental questions.
The World-Wide ILC Collaboration
Research and development for the ILC is truly international in scope. Institutions around the world contribute, coordinated by the Global Design Effort. The highly successful collaborative, international activities culminated in a Reference Design Report (RDR) completed in early 2007. The next step entails more detailed design, to be developed in an Engineering Design Report (EDR).
The GDE functions under the auspices of the International Linear Collider Steering Committee (ILCSC), governed by the International Committee on Future Accelerators (ICFA). Representatives from the Department of Energy and their counterparts from other nations formed Funding Agencies for Large Colliders (FALC) that meets several times a year to provide oversight for the GDE. Both the ILCSC and FALC have formally accepted the RDR, and are working with the GDE to promote the Engineering Design Report.
The World-Wide Study (WWS) coordinates studies of physics and detector needs, also under the auspices of the ILCSC. The ILCSC-appointed Research Director oversees these studies and will lead the development of letters of intent for detector proposals.
Research and Development U.S. ILC
R&D for ILC takes place in universities and Department of Energy laboratories across the nation. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory leads R&D for the advancement of superconducting radiofrequency technology. Stanford Linear Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC) is developing radiofrequency equipment to power the accelerator structures, and also leads in detector development. Cavity development also takes place at Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, and Cornell University. These laboratories, as well as Brookhaven National Accelerator Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Accelerator Laboratory, and Los Alamos National Laboratory are all involved in designing and developing aspects of conventional facilities, sources for beam particles, damping rings, and modules for the linear accelerators.
Much of the detector development takes place at the universities, with significant effort provided by national laboratories too. The physics program imposes unprecedented requirements on the detector elements. Groundbreaking research in tracking, calorimetry, and particle identification is required to fully exploit the potential of the ILC.
Management of U.S. ILC R&D
The Department of Energy sponsors research and development for the ILC accelerator complex, superconducting accelerator technology, physics studies, and particle detection. As a member of FALC, the Office of High Energy Physics sponsors and oversees the GDE. The Americas Regional Team (ART) coordinates the U.S. accelerator R&D effort, while the American Linear Collider Physics Group (ALCPG) coordinates the physics and detector R&D. The Office of High Energy Physics works with both ART and ALCPG to prioritize and coordinate laboratory and university research. Together, DOE and the National Science Foundation hold yearly, separate peer reviews of ART and ALPCG activities and their future plans. In addition, the members of the Office of High Energy Physics make frequent visits to the laboratories and university sites involved in the ILC. The results of such peer-based reviews and site visits help manage the program in an effective manner.
