Berkeley Lab

Background and Motivation

Interest in the next generation of hadron colliders as one of the main discovery tools for the future of high-energy physics has been evolving rapidly. There are growing activities toward development of machine designs at CERN (Future Circular Collider — FCC), encouraged by the 2013 European Union Strategy Update, and in China (Super proton-proton Collider — SppC). In the US, the Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel (P5) has recently and strongly supported a future high-energy proton-proton collider as part of an overall strategy.

Subsequently, the DOE Office of High Energy Physics commissioned a High Energy Physics Advisory Panel (HEPAP) subpanel to advise on medium and long term national goals for US Accelerator R&D in accelerator based particle physics consistent with the P5 report.

The P5 report states, “A very high-energy proton-proton collider is the most powerful future tool for direct discovery of new particles and interactions under any scenario of physics results that can be acquired in the P5 time window.” The report also states, “The U.S. is the world leader in R&D on high-field superconducting magnet technology, which will be a critical enabling technology for such a collider.”

In light of these observations, the P5 strategic plan endorses medium-term R&D on high-field magnets and materials in the context of its recommendation 24: “Participate in global conceptual design studies and critical path R&D for future very high-energy proton-proton colliders. Continue to play a leadership role in superconducting magnet technology focused on the dual goals of increasing performance and decreasing costs.”