| AAPPS Bulletin
Vol.13 No.4 August 2003 |
Special Reports
Understanding Matter, Energy, Space, and Time:
The Case for the e+e-
Linear Collider (PDF,60KB)
Worldwide Linear-Collider Study Group
abstract---
Over the past century, physicists have sought to explain the character of the matter and energy in our universe,
to show how the basic forces of nature and the building blocks of matter come about, and to explore the fabric of
space and time. In the past three decades, experiments at laboratories around the world have given us a descriptive
framework called the standard model. These particle physics advances make a direct impact upon our
understanding of the structure of the universe, both at its inception in the Big Bang, and in its evolution to the
present and future. The final synthesis is not yet fully clear, but we know with confidence that major discoveries
expanding the standard model paradigm will occur at the next generation of accelerators. The Large Hadron
Collider (LHC) being built at CERN will take us into the discovery realm. The proposed e+e- Linear Collider
(LC) will extend the discoveries and provide a wealth of measurements that are essential for giving deeper
understanding of their meaning, and pointing the way to further evolution of particle physics in the future.
A world-wide consensus has formed for a baseline LC project in which positrons (e+) collide with electrons (e-)
at energies up to 500 GeV, with luminosity (the measure of the collision rate) above 1034 cm-2s-1. The energy
should be upgradable to about 1 TeV. Above this firm baseline, several options are envisioned whose priority
will depend upon the nature of the discoveries made at the LHC and in the initial LC operation.
This report was prepared by the community of high energy physicists [1], many of whom have participated in
the World Wide Study of Physics and Detectors for a Future Linear e+e- Collider [2]. In it, we summarize the
scientific case for the LC, the accelerator complex, the nature of the experimental detectors needed, and the
cooperative steps being taken by physicists around the world to achieve it, in language that we hope will be
accessible to particle physicists, and more broadly to scientists in related disciplines. We hope that this document
can also be useful as background for preparing the more general case to the public audience. More extensive
discussions of the LC physics program and detectors can be found in [3], [4], and [5]. |
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