Mad Andrew's Journal

This just in...
The International Committee on Future Accelerators (ICFA) has reccomended a "cold technology" solution for the future linear collider.
http://www.interactions.org/cms/?pid=1014290

Now, if you haven't been keeping up, and you almost certainly haven't, there were two types of accelerating structures competing here. "Warm" ones are made out of very precisely machined copper, and operate at room temperature. They have massive power demands because of the inefficiency (resistance). "Cold" ones are made out of conventional superconductors like niobium (which is expensive), and operate down at liquid helium temperatures (3 K). However, they are VERY efficient since there is effectively no resistance.

Even more interesting is the structure of the world's scientific community with regards to this stuff. The cold temperature design basically originated from the TESLA design in Germany (DESY, at Hamburg). The warm temperature design originated from SLAC (Stanford, out in Cali), with collaborators from KEK in Japan. Fermilab (as it tends to with the wormy guy at the helm), sat somewhere in the middle helping with both designs, but don't kid yourself, there would have been a LOT more cheering if the warm design was chosen.

So what does this mean? As far as real negotiations go for the siting, probably nothing (unless there are some under the table deals going on here, which you should never discount). However, the DOES site many of the experts on the cavities in Germany. Does this foreshadow a further shift of high energy physics to Europe? With the current state of science funding in the U.S., I'd better renew my passport.

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