GENEVA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- CERN is planning to build the next-generation circular collider with a 100-km superconducting accelerator ring, even larger than the world's existing largest particle collider, the Geneva-based particle physics research center revealed on Tuesday.

Publishing a Conceptual Design Report (CDR) on the Future Circular Collider (FCC), CERN said the project would "benefit the particle physics community throughout the twenty-first century".

"The FCC's ultimate goal is to provide a 100-km superconducting proton accelerator ring, with energy of up to 100 TeV, meaning an order of magnitude more powerful than the LHC," said CERN Director for Accelerators and Technology Frederick Bordry.

Succeeding the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which is already the world's largest and most powerful particle collider and so far the largest machine, the FCC is designed to use new-generation high-field superconducting magnets to offer a wide range of new physics opportunities such as reaching energies of 100 TeV and beyond.

That would allow precise studies of how a Higgs particle interacts with another Higgs particle, and thorough exploration of the role of the electroweak symmetry breaking in the history of our universe, according to CERN.

The discovery of the Higgs boson at the LHC opened a new path for research, as the Higgs boson could be a door into new physics. Detailed studies of its properties are therefore a priority for any future high-energy physics accelerator.

In addition, the FCC may help with experimental evidence beyond the Standard Model to account for observations such as dark matter and the domination of matter over antimatter.

By providing electron-positron, proton-proton and ion-ion collisions at unprecedented energies and intensities, with the possibility of electron-proton and electron-ion collisions, the FCC would enable Europe "to be in a position to propose an ambitious post-LHC accelerator project at CERN by the time of the next Strategy update".

According to the design report, the total cost for the FCC could amount to 24 billion euros (27.3 billion U.S. dollars), including four billion euros for an ultra-high intensity lepton collider, 15 billion euros for a 100 TeV energy frontier hadron collider, and five billion euros for the 100 km tunnel infrastructure. The whole facility is expected to offer a research program of seven decades.

"While presenting new, daunting challenges, the FCC would greatly benefit from CERN's expertise, accelerator complex and infrastructures, which have been developed over more than half a century," said Bordry. Enditem

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