The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is currently working on the first phase of its Future Circular Collider (FCC) project. In the inaugural stage, CERN says it will conduct ‘initial assessments on the ground in order to refine the existing geological and seismic data, as well as the data on the fauna and flora for conversation purposes.’
FCC has been conceptualised as a potential successor to CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest and most powerful power accelerator which was started in September 2008. The build-up to LHC’s opening, it must be recalled, was dominated by talks of a ‘doomsday scenario.’
Here is all you need to know about Future Circular Collider:
(1.) According to CERN, the machine’s objective is to ‘push the energy and intensity frontiers of particle colliders, with aim to reach collision energies of 100 tera electron volts, in search of new physics.’
(2.) It is among various options being considered by the international particle physics community to replace the Large Hadron Collider, which will complete its mission by 2040. LHC is also the main facility of CERN.
(3.) FCC would be installed inside a circular tunnel which would come up at a depth of between 100 metres to 400 metres, on the France-Switzerland border. The tunnel would cover a distance of 91 kms between the two countries.
(4.) On the surface, meanwhile, as many as eight scientifc sites would be constructed. Of these, seven would be in France, with one in Geneva (Switzerland).
(5.) In 2028, depending on the results of a feasibility study, CERN’s 23 member states (22 European + Israel) would give a final decision on the project. If approved, Future Circular Collider is projected to accelerate electrons and positrons until 2060, and then hadrons until 2090.
(with agency inputs)
