Crystal Ball: On the Future High Energy Colliders

TL;DR

This paper reviews current and proposed future high energy colliders, evaluating their feasibility, performance, and costs, and discusses the potential of ultimate energy reach accelerators for advancing particle physics.

Contribution

It provides a uniform evaluation framework for various proposed colliders and offers perspectives on future accelerator technologies beyond current designs.

Findings

Assessment of collider energy and performance reach

Comparison of cost ranges for different collider options

Insights into future accelerator technologies like plasma and crystal accelerators

Abstract

High energy particle colliders have been in the forefront of particle physics for more than three decades. At present the near term US, European and international strategies of the particle physics community are centered on full exploitation of the physics potential of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) through its high-luminosity upgrade (HL-LHC). A number of next generation collider facilities have been proposed and are currently under consideration for the medium- and far-future of the accelerator-based high energy physics. In this paper we offer a uniform approach to evaluation of various accelerators based on the feasibility of their energy reach, performance reach and cost range. We briefly review such post-LHC options as linear e+e- colliders in Japan (ILC) or at CERN (CLIC), muon collider, and circular lepton or hadron colliders in China (CepC/SppC) and Europe (FCC). We conclude with a look into ultimate energy reach accelerators based on plasmas and crystals, and some perspectives for the far future of accelerator-based particle physics.