Plans for Europe’s giant new particle collider take shape

Europe’s CERN laboratory on Monday revealed more details about plans for a huge new particle accelerator that would miniaturize the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), stepping up efforts to uncover the underlying secrets of the universe.

If approved, future Circular Colliders (FCCs) would begin colliding their first particles around mid-century, with highest-energy collisions around 2070.

If operated under French and Swiss jurisdiction, it would be more than three times the length of CERN’s LHC, currently the largest and most powerful particle accelerator.

The idea behind both is to send particles spinning around the ring, causing them to collide at nearly the speed of light, and the collisions revealing their true nature.

Among other discoveries, the LHC made history in 2012 when it allowed scientists to observe the Higgs boson for the first time.

However, the $5.6 billion LHC, which began operations in 2010, is expected to be finished by around 2040.

Faster and more powerful FCCs allow scientists to continue pushing the limits. They hope to confirm the existence of more particles, the building blocks of matter, that have so far only been theorized.

Another unfinished task of science is figuring out exactly what 95 percent of the universe is made of. The universe is thought to be about 68 percent dark energy and 27 percent dark matter, but both remain a complete mystery.

Another unknown is why there is so little antimatter in the universe compared to matter.

CERN hopes that vast improvements in humanity’s ability to crush particles could help solve these and other mysteries.

“Our aim is to study the properties of matter at the smallest scales and highest energies,” CERN Director-General Fabiola Gianotti said at the presentation of the interim report in Geneva.

The report revealed the first results of the FCC’s feasibility study, which is expected to be finalized by 2025.

$17 billion in the first phase

CERN member states, including the UK and Israel, will decide whether to implement the plan in 2028.

If given the green light, construction of the collider would begin in 2033.

The project is divided into parts.

In 2048, an “electron-positron” collider will begin colliding light particles with the aim of further investigating the Higgs boson and one of the four fundamental forces, called the weak force.

The tunnel, infrastructure and first stage of the collider will cost about 15 billion Swiss francs ($17 billion), Gianotti said.

The powerful hadron collider, which collides protons, was originally scheduled to be put into use for the first time in 2070.

Its energy goal is 100 trillion electron volts, shattering the LHC’s record of 13.6 trillion electron volts.

Gianotti said the late-generation collider is “the only machine” that will allow humanity to “take a giant leap forward in the study of matter.”

After eight years of research, the configuration chosen by the FCC was a new circular tunnel 90.7 kilometers (56.5 miles) long and 5.5 meters (feet) in diameter.

The tunnel leading to the LHC would pass beneath the Geneva region of Switzerland and its namesake lake, detouring south near the picturesque French town of Annecy.

Eight technical and scientific facilities will be built above ground.

CERN said it is consulting with communities along the route and plans to carry out an impact study on how the tunnel will affect the area.