Towards future circular colliders

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN presently provides proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass (c.m.) energy of 13 TeV. The LHC design was started more than 30 years ago, and its physics programme will extend through the second half of the 2030’s. The global Future Circular Collider (FCC) study is now preparing for a post-LHC project. The FCC study focuses on the design of a 100-TeV hadron collider (FCC-hh) in a new ∼100 km tunnel. It also includes the design of a high-luminosity electron-positron collider (FCC-ee) as a potential intermediate step, and a lepton-hadron collider option (FCC-he). The scope of the FCC study comprises accelerators, technology, infrastructure, detectors, physics, concepts for worldwide data services, international governance models, and implementation scenarios. Among the FCC core technologies figure 16-T dipole magnets, based on $Nb_3Sn$ superconductor, for the FCC-hh hadron collider, and a highly efficient superconducting radiofrequency system for the FCC-ee lepton collider. Following the FCC concept, IHEP Beijing has initiated a parallel design study for an $e^+ e^-$ Higgs factory in China (CEPC), which is to be succeeded by a high-energy hadron collider (SPPC). At present a tunnel circumference of 54 km and a hadron collider c.m. energy of about 70 TeV are being considered. After a brief look at the LHC, this article reports the motivation and the present status of the FCC study, some of the primary design challenges and R&D subjects, as well as the emerging global collaboration