Abstract
Particle physics has arrived at an important moment of its history. The discovery of the Higgs boson has completed the Standard Model, the core theory behind the known set of elementary particles and fundamental interactions. However, the Standard Model leaves important questions unanswered, such as the nature of dark matter, the origin of the matter–antimatter asymmetry in the Universe, and the existence and hierarchy of neutrino masses. To address these questions and the origin of the newly discovered Higgs boson, high-energy colliders are required. Future generations of such machines must be versatile, as broad and powerful as possible with a capacity of unprecedented precision, sensitivity and energy reach. Here, we argue that the Future Circular Colliders offer unique opportunities, and discuss their physics motivation, key measurements, accelerator strategy, research and development status, and technical challenges. The Future Circular Collider integrated programme foresees operation in two stages: initially an electron–positron collider serving as a Higgs and electroweak factory running at different centre-of-mass energies, followed by a proton–proton collider at a collision energy of 100 TeV. The interplay between measurements at the two collider stages underscores the synergy of their physics potentials.
Highlights
Particle physics has arrived at an important moment of its history
This achievement does not stop the need for further exploration: there remain many unanswered questions, with the origin of the Higgs boson on top of the list, which can only be answered by more powerful lepton and hadron colliders
Is the Higgs boson an elementary particle, or a composite state of confined particles? What mechanism generates its mass and selfinteraction, leading to electroweak (EW) symmetry breaking and to the generation of particle masses? Is the Higgs mass calculable, or is it an arbitrary parameter fixed by hand? What was the nature of the phase transition that led, in the early Universe, to EW symmetry breaking? Addressing these questions requires precision measurements of the Higgs boson properties and of EW interactions above the weak scale
Summary
Michael Benedikt[1], Alain Blondel[2,3], Patrick Janot 1, Michelangelo Mangano 1 and Frank Zimmermann 1 ✉. The Standard Model leaves important questions unanswered, such as the nature of dark matter, the origin of the matter–antimatter asymmetry in the Universe, and the existence and hierarchy of neutrino masses To address these questions and the origin of the newly discovered Higgs boson, high-energy colliders are required. The SM describes with great precision innumerable physical phenomena observed in the laboratory and in the cosmos, linking present day experiments with the first 10–11 seconds of the Universe This achievement does not stop the need for further exploration: there remain many unanswered questions, with the origin of the Higgs boson on top of the list, which can only be answered by more powerful lepton and hadron colliders.
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