____________________
Deepest Secrets

COLLIDERS COLLIDING: ILC and CLIC unite in the Linear Collider

Collaboration, a new global organisation to advance the global development work for next-generation particle collider

Vancouver - The two most mature future particle physics projects, the International Linear Collider (ILC) and the Compact Linear Collider study (CLIC), have formed an official organisational partnership today. As the newly founded Linear Collider Collaboration, they will coordinate and advance the global development work for the linear collider, a global project to complement the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN and ultimately understand the deepest secrets of the universe. The Linear Collider Collaboration is headed by Lyn Evans, former Project Manager of CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Hitoshi Murayama, Director of the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, will serve as a deputy director.

The Linear Collider Board, headed by the University of Tokyo’s Sachio Komamiya, is a new oversight committee for the Linear Collider Collaboration that will take office at the same time. The oversight board was appointed by the International Committee for Future Accelerators (ICFA), which is currently chaired by Pier Oddone, Director of Fermilab, US.

“It is my great pleasure to see the worldwide efforts to design and build the next-generation linear collider take their next step. I look forward to working with Lyn and his team,” said ICFA chair Pier Oddone.

“Now that the LHC has delivered its first and exciting discovery I am eager to help the next project on its way,” said Linear Collider Director Lyn Evans. “I am an accelerator builder, and with the strong support the ILC receives from Japan, the LCC may be getting the tunneling machines out soon for a Higgs factory in Japan while at the same time pushing frontiers in CLIC technology.”

“The two projects, ILC and CLIC, have similar goals, but use very different technologies and are at different stages of maturity. I look forward to seeing progress in both projects as chair of the Linear Collider Board,” said Sachio Komamiya.

The Linear Collider Collaboration has three main sections, reflecting the three areas of research that will continue to be conducted. The International Linear Collider section will be led by Mike Harrison (Brookhaven National Lab, US), the Compact Linear Collider section will be led by Steinar Stapnes (CERN), and the section for Physics and Detectors will be led by Hitoshi Yamamoto (Tohoku University). For the ILC, which will publish its Technical Design Report in June 2013, the main focus is on preparing it for possible construction while at the same time further advancing acceleration technologies and design optimisation. For CLIC, research into the novel drive beam acceleration concept will continue to proceed. For Physics and Detectors, research and development of novel detector technologies and concepts will continue at full power, fully exploiting the synergies that exist between ILC and CLIC detector requirements.

The ILC’s Global Design Effort and its supervisory organisation, the ILC Steering committee, officially handed over their duty to LCC and LCB, but they will continue to work together until the official completion of the Technical Design Report for the ILC in June 2013.