Circular Electron Positron Collider
The CEPC is a planned large-scale research facility in China. From 2030, basic physical research is to be carried out at the CEPC with the help of the world's largest particle accelerator .
The acronym CEPC is derived from the English Circular Electron Positron Collider . This stands for an accelerator ring in which electrons and positrons as their antiparticles are accelerated and directed against each other in order to research the resulting decay products. As in the comparable particle accelerator Large Hadron Collider at CERN , which works with proton-proton collisions, it is preceded by a pre-acceleration in a linear accelerator.
The planning of the project is coordinated by the Institute for High Energy Physics (IHEP), which is subordinate to the Chinese Academy of Sciences. So far, more than 1,100 experts from 221 research institutions in 26 countries, including Germany and the USA, have been working on the project. The costs are estimated at up to 5.0 billion euros.
Location
From a number of locations in areas that are as safe as possible from earthquakes, the location of Xiongan in a special economic zone in Hebei Province in northern China was preferred. The CEPC is to be built there with a length of 50 to 70 kilometers. The largest comparable accelerator to date is the Large Hadron Collider with a ring tunnel 26.7 kilometers in length.
In the CEPC, accelerated electrons will hit their positron antiparticles with a center of gravity of 240 to 250 GeV. This corresponds exactly to the center of gravity energy that is necessary to generate two real Higgs bosons ( threshold energy ). Therefore the cross-section of this reaction has a maximum at this energy. In the world's largest comparable electron-positron collider LEP , 209 GeV center of gravity energy was achieved.
Basic research
At the CEPS, the structure of matter and the fundamental interactions between the elementary particles are researched, i.e. the question of what the universe is made of and how it works. With accelerators, particles are accelerated to almost the speed of light and made to collide. Different particle detectors are used to reconstruct the trajectories of the particles created during the collisions, from which conclusions can be drawn about the properties of the collided and newly created particles. This is associated with high technical effort for the manufacture and operation of the systems as well as with extreme demands on the computer performance for the purpose of data evaluation.
Objectives
- One research field is the study of Higgs bosons. So far it is not certain whether there is only one type of Higgs boson or a whole class of these particles. While only a few Higgs bosons were found at CERN after decades of preparatory work, more than a million Higgs bosons are to be analyzed within ten years from 2030.
- Another focus is put by the Glashow-Weinberg-Salam theory of the electro-weak interaction introduced W and Z bosons. From 2030, around 100 million W bosons and up to a trillion Z bosons are to be examined in ten years.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Deng Xiaoci: Chinese scientists reveal design concept for world's largest super collider. Global Times, November 14, 2018, accessed December 9, 2018 .