Open AccessEngineering challenges of future particle accelerators
Author(s) -
Philip Burrows
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of physics. conference series
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.21
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1742-6596
pISSN - 1742-6588
DOI - 10.1088/1742-6596/105/1/012008
Subject(s) - particle (ecology) , systems engineering , computer science , engineering , geology , oceanography
Particle physics is on the threshold of major discoveries which will shed light on the origin of mass, dark matter, and possible extra spatial dimensions in nature. Future particle accelerators will recreate matter conditions not seen since the first few billionths of a second after the Big Bang. The engineering challenges are immense. 30km-long straight tunnels must be drilled to house the accelerator, and components must be aligned and stabilised to microns over distances of kilometers. High-power superconducting niobium radio-frequency cavities will drive electron and positron beams to velocities approaching the speed of light. The beams must be made a few nanometers in size, and collided head-on after traversing tens of kilometers. Feedback and control systems must keep the beams in collision on nanosecond timescales. The paper will review these extreme engineering challenges and report on the advanced RandD being done in the UK and elsewhere to get us to our physics goals. © 2008 IOP Publishing Ltd