Considerations On Energy Frontier Colliders After LHC

TL;DR

This paper reviews current and future energy frontier colliders, analyzing their feasibility in terms of energy, luminosity, and cost, and discusses technological challenges and future prospects for post-LHC accelerators.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of potential post-LHC collider options, assessing their feasibility and highlighting R&D challenges for future energy frontier facilities.

Findings

Assessment of current collider options and their feasibility.

Identification of major technological challenges for future colliders.

Discussion on ultimate energy reach and future perspectives.

Abstract

Since 1960's, particle colliders have been in the forefront of particle physics, 29 total have been built and operated, 7 are in operation now. 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). The future of the world-wide HEP community critically depends on the feasibility of possible post-LHC colliders. The concept of the feasibility is complex and includes at least three factors: feasibility of energy, feasibility of luminosity and feasibility of cost. Here we overview all current options for post-LHC colliders from such perspective (ILC, CLIC, Muon Collider, plasma colliders, CEPC, FCC, HE-LHC) and discuss major challenges and accelerator R&D required to demonstrate feasibility of an energy frontier accelerator facility following the LHC. We conclude by taking a look into ultimate energy reach accelerators based on plasmas and crystals, and discussion on the perspectives for the far future of the accelerator-based particle physics. This paper largely follows previous study and the presentation given at the ICHEP'2016 conference in Chicago.