The global high-energy physics community recently gathered for the 10th Future Circular Collider (FCC) Conference in San Francisco, California. Held from June 10-14, 2024, the week-long event provided an update on the progress of the FCC, a ring-based particle collider that would initially start as an electron-positron (FCC-ee) “Higgs factory” and have the potential to enable a proton collider (FCC-hh) with energy significantly higher than those of current circular colliders—including the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s highest energy collider. The FCC is being proposed for construction at CERN.
As in previous events, Berkeley Lab participated strongly in this year’s FCC Conference, with the Lab’s director, Mike Witherell, joining SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory Director, John Sarrao, in welcoming participants. Berkeley Lab’s Accelerator Technology & Applied Physics (ATAP) Division Director Cameron Geddes and Physics Division Senior Scientist Carl Haber served on the Scientific Program Committee. ATAP Deputy Director of Technology and Head of the Superconducting Magnet Program, Soren Prestemon, and Physics Division Machine Learning Group Head, Ben Nachman, served on the Local Organizing Committee.
The FCC Conference included many presentations on the progress of the FCC accelerator R&D and design. At this year’s event, 14 Berkeley Lab researchers presented topics ranging from accelerator design and control to synergies between the FCC and the U.S. Magnet Development Program (managed by Berkeley Lab) to the next generation of simulation tools for modeling colliders.
“Recently, the conference has also included site investigations and civil engineering design, as the scale of the tunnel and overall facility is significantly larger than anything undertaken by the scientific community to date,” said Prestemon.
He added that this year’s event provided an excellent opportunity for U.S. particle accelerator scientists and engineers to learn about the FCC’s status and “explore means and opportunities to engage more significantly with the project.”
A conceptual design study of the FCC was completed in 2019. A five-year technical and financial feasibility study has been embarked on and is slated for completion by March 2025. That same year, the European particle physics community will publish its updated strategic plan, with proponents of the FCC anticipating that the project will again be recommended and that the CERN Council (CERN’s governance body) will approve the project later this decade, said Prestemon.
Following construction, the FCC would initially operate as an FCC-ee and serve as a Higgs factory capable of producing large numbers of Higgs bosons. The FCC-ee would comprise a huge diameter tunnel since electron colliders are subjected to energy loss in synchrotron radiation, which is significantly reduced/mitigated by going to a larger radius.
According to Prestemon, there is a broad consensus among the global particle physics community that understanding the nature of the Higgs boson is among the highest scientific priorities of the field and that a Higgs factory should be the next high-energy accelerator facility. A perspective, he says, that is reflected in the recommendations of the recent U.S. Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel.
“A future very high-energy FCC-hh would be built in the FCC-ee tunnel two to three decades after the construction of the FCC-ee,” said Geddes. “This is one of the paths to very high energies, the development of which is also prioritized in the report.”
Daniel Whiteson, a particle physicist and professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Irvine, presents at the FCC Conference. (Credit: Carl A. Williams/Berkeley Lab)
The FFC Conference also engages with the public by sponsoring a public event. Held at the Exploratorium in San Francisco on June 11, this year’s public event, entitled “What’s Left to Discover? Our Unknown Universe,” included an entertaining and insightful presentation by Daniel Whiteson, a particle physicist and professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Irvine, followed by a panel discussion between CERN Director General, Fabiola Gianotti, and University of California, Berkeley, Professor of Physics and Berkeley Lab Senior Scientist, Hitoshi Murayama. KQED Science Reporter Danielle Venton moderated the panel.
The FCC Week 2024 was co-organized by Argonne National Laboratory, Berkeley Lab, Brookhaven National Laboratory, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, and the U.S. Department of Energy, with generous support from the University of California, Berkeley, University of California, Davis, University of California, Irvine, University of California, Santa Cruz, and California State University East Bay.
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Berkeley Lab scientists and engineers contribute to FCC Week 2024 in San Francisco on June 10-14
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