Possibility to see Higgs particles at the International Linear Collider

[roberto85]

I was wondering, if there was a hint or a strong signal of a Higgs particle existing around the 125 GeV region whether the possible future International Linear Collider would be able to probe that energy and produce Higgs to study? Also, if this is true, is it also true that the linear collider would be able to study such a Higgs in more detail than the LHC can?

 

[Vanadium 50]

The answer is yes and yes, but it's also unlikely that an ILC as originally envisioned will ever be built. The other rationale for the ILC, to study low energy SUSY, is in trouble given the LHC results. A cheaper, less capable machine is something that might be considered: a Higgs factory could be built using a synchrotron, for example.

 

[Bill_K]

Given the ILC's projected high cost (~$10B) and effort required, capability to study the Higgs boson is an absolute must if it's ever going to be built. Especially the design hinges on what the Higgs mass is, and therefore how much energy will be required. For a low-mass Higgs (e.g. 125 GeV) the original ILC at 500 GeV would be enough. They've also considered a 1 TeV design, as well as a 3 GeV CLIC. People will probably argue for higher energy anyway, enough that supersymmetry will also be within reach.

All of these machines are electron-positron colliders. Proton colliders like the LHC are really quark colliders, and the individual quarks inside the proton have a considerable spread in energy, which limits the energy resolution of your results. But if you're colliding electrons you know the energy more precisely, and that's their big advantage.

The LEP, which previously occupied the site where the LHC is now, was an electron-positron ring collider which operated at energies up to 200 GeV. Such colliders must cope with a large amount of synchrotron radiation - the main difficulty is radiation damage to the instrumentation.

 

[AdrianTheRock]

...Proton colliders like the LHC are really quark colliders, and the individual quarks inside the proton have a considerable spread in energy, which limits the energy resolution of your results...

I've read somewhere that the LHC actually collides gluons rather than quarks.

(Still don't fully understand this myself even just at phenomenology level, so if anyone can provide further enlightenment, please do. Naively, I would have thought that colliding gluons means that the ones involved would carry even lower proportions of the originating protons' momenta than the valence quarks.)

 

[Bill_K]

Sorry, I should have said partons, which includes both gluons and quarks.

 

[roberto85]

Given the ILC's projected high cost (~$10B) and effort required, capability to study the Higgs boson is an absolute must if it's ever going to be built. Especially the design hinges on what the Higgs mass is, and therefore how much energy will be required. For a low-mass Higgs (e.g. 125 GeV) the original ILC at 500 GeV would be enough. They've also considered a 1 TeV design, as well as a 3 GeV CLIC. People will probably argue for higher energy anyway, enough that supersymmetry will also be within reach.

All of these machines are electron-positron colliders. Proton colliders like the LHC are really quark colliders, and the individual quarks inside the proton have a considerable spread in energy, which limits the energy resolution of your results. But if you're colliding electrons you know the energy more precisely, and that's their big advantage.

The LEP, which previously occupied the site where the LHC is now, was an electron-positron ring collider which operated at energies up to 200 GeV. Such colliders must cope with a large amount of synchrotron radiation - the main difficulty is radiation damage to the instrumentation.

I do hope they build some sort of linear collider to investigate the higgs further. Perhaps plans will emerge and become more concrete once more data is accumulated at the LHC. Thanks for the info :)

 

[petergreat]

...which limits the energy resolution of your results. But if you're colliding electrons you know the energy more precisely, and that's their big advantage.

Another advantage is that e+/e- energy can be tuned to match the Higgs resonance, which enhances cross sections considerably.