China Plans to Build the World’s Biggest Particle Collider

Credit: IHEP.

China plans to build the world’s largest particle collider complex. The structure will be at least twice as big as CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva, Switzerland. The Circular Electron Positron Collider (CEPC) and the Super Proton Proton Collider (SPPC) are being designed by the best chinese physicists in collaboration with international figures. The super structure is proof of China’s will to be a global player in science and research.

The accelerator is planned to be an underground, 80 km long circumference. The tunnel will host two independent colliders, the CEPC and the SPPC. The former will be dedicated to collide electrons and their anti-matter counterparts at a velocity close to the speed of light; the latter to collide the more massive protons. The structures will try to emulate the conditions that followed the Big Bang and answer questions about the origins of matter, energy and space-time. They will reach energy levels seven times higher than the LHC, potentially allowing to discover new particles.

Extra dimensions, super-symmetry, dark matter

Chinese and Western scientists from the Center for Future High Energy Physics in Beijing are working on the conceptual design that will be sent to the Chinese authorities in December. The massive complex could host a state-of-the-art scientific and technological campus on its grounds, and attract leading scientists of the field of particle physics. Extra dimensions, Higgs boson new theories, super symmetry and dark matter are some of the topics that could be addressed. China welcomes scientists worldwide for machine design, construction, and experiments.

The first phase of the construction is scheduled for 2020. Qinhuangdao, a port city in the Hebei province, 300 km east of Beijing, has been proposed as a suitable location to construct the particle accelerator.

Source: Institute of High Energy Physics