The Future Circular Collider

The Feasibility Study Report assessing the feasibility of a possible Future Circular Collider (FCC) has been published recently.

Launched: The FCC Feasibility Study was launched following the recommendations of the 2020 update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics and will serve as input for the ongoing update of the Strategy,
Published By: The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)

About The Future Circular Collider (FCC)

The FCC is a proposed particle collider that could succeed CERN’s current flagship instrument ie. the 27-km Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in the 2040s.
Location: The particle collider ring will be placed along the French-Swiss border and below Lake Geneva
Budget: The project is being planned at a cost of some 14 billion Swiss Francs (about USD 16 billion).
Aim: The collider is aiming to explore fundamental questions about the universe, including the nature of dark matter, the origin of matter-antimatter asymmetry, and the source of neutrino masses etc.
Tunnel Characteristics:
- Circumference: The tunnels circumference will be 90.7 km
- Surface Points: The tunnel will have 8 surface points (7 in France, 1 in Switzerland)
Stages: FCC research programme outlines two possible stages
- FCC-ee Stage: It is an electron–positron collider serving as a Higgs, electroweak and top-quark factory running at different centre-of-mass energies
  - Timeline: It will operate for about 15 years from the mid-2040s
- FCC-hh Stage: It is a later stage proton–proton collider operating at an unprecedented collision energy of around 100 TeV
  - Timeline: It will operate for 25 years from the 2070s
Significance:
- New Technologies: The FCC promises scientific discoveries that could drive innovation in fields like cryogenics, super-conducting magnets and vacuum technologies etc.
- Exploring Beyond the Standard Model: The FCC will go beyond the current Standard Model of particle physics by investigating the Higgs boson and other fundamental particles and forces, potentially leading to the discovery of new particles and phenomena.
- Higgs Boson: The FCC will allow for a more precise study of the Higgs boson, including its interactions with other particles, which is crucial for understanding how particles gain mass and the structure of the universe
- High Precision and Sensitivity: The FCC will offer unprecedented precision, sensitivity, and energy reach, enabling scientists to explore new physics and test existing theories with greater accuracy.
- The collider enables significantly higher luminosity and up to four experiments, while also offering the infrastructure for a subsequent hadron collider.

About European Council for Nuclear Research (CERN)

Establishment: CERN was founded in 1954 with a resolution being adopted at the intergovernmental meeting of UNESCO in Paris in December 1951
Location: The CERN laboratory is situated on the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva.
Membership: It was one of Europe’s first joint ventures and now has 23 member states.
Area of Research: CERN’s main area of research is particle physics.
Instruments: The instruments used at CERN are purpose-built particle accelerators and detectors.
- Accelerators: They boost beams of particles to high energies before the beams are made to collide with each other or with stationary targets.
- Detectors observe and record the results of these collisions.
Host:
- The Large Hadron Collider (LHC): CERN host the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator.
  - The LHC : It consists of a 27-kilometre ring of superconducting magnets with a number of accelerating structures to boost the energy of the particles along the way.
    - LHC replaced a previous electron–positron collider in the same tunnel, called LEP, that was built in the 1980s.
  - The beams inside the LHC are made to collide at four locations around the accelerator ring, corresponding to the positions of four particle detectors ie. ATLAS, CMS, ALICE and LHCb.
- Other Experiments: It includes work on antimatter, cosmic rays, alternative accelerator technologies, advanced magnets and isotopes for medical applications.
Discovery of the Higgs boson: The LHC in 2012 discovered the Higgs boson (the linchpin of the standard model).
- The discovery of the Higgs Boson was the first direct evidence of a field that permeates the Universe ie. the Higgs field
- The discovery of the Higgs Field explained the varying interactions of other fundamental particles with it results in them having different masses.

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