For a starter, a plot from the LHC Higgs Cross Section Working Group:
It shows the Higgs boson production cross section in proton-proton collisions as a function of center-of-mass energy. Notably, the plot extends as far as our imagination can stretch, that is up to a 100 TeV collider. At 100 TeV the cross section is 40 times larger compared to the 8 TeV LHC. So far we produced about 1 million Higgs bosons at the LHC and we'll probably make 20 times more in this decade. With a 100 TeV collider, 3 inverse attobarn of luminosity, and 4 detectors (dream on) we could produce 10 billion Higgs bosons and really squeeze the shit out of it. For the Higgs production in association with a top-antitop quark pair the increase is even more dramatic: between 8 at 100 TeV the rate increases by a factor of 300 and ttH is upgraded to the 3rd largest production mode. Double Higgs production increases by a similar factor and becomes fairly common. So these theoretically interesting production processes will be a piece of cake in the asymptotic future.
Wouldn't it be good?
6 comments:
(OK, since nobody else is willing to comment...)
My predictions: 100 TeV VLHC will be sold to the politicians as a $10-15 billion project but will actually cost around $40 billion (or, in more appropriate units, .8 Sochi).
Anyone else?
I can (almost) understand the desire/need for higher energy colliders.
But what would be the point of increasing the production rate/luminosity ?
Surely, particle physicists are the most patient people in the world?
Michel Beekveld
I think the rate of scientific discovery - with physics being the leading indicator - will slow down. Historically physics was done by one person, then moved to small groups of people, then to university size, then groups of universities, single national governments and final whole world multinational facilities. Since this is largest grouping of funding and minds possible, physics - and eventually the other sciences - will have a discovery growth rate equal to the World's GNP. The only two ways around this I see is through technological breakthroughs that will make big physics cheap again, or through low energy and cosmological studies which require figuring out the consequence of new physics on the cosmos or some low energy parameter.
Yes, it certainly would be good!
The plot suggests that regular pp->H production would actually pose a significant background for pp->HH production. I guess it will be a while before we have to worry about it, though...
Michael
@Anonymous (23. Feb 21:09): Physics is not just particle physics.
The trend you described is present in some areas of physics, but the experiments with 2-3 physicists still exist in other areas.
Concerning particle physics, plasma wakefield acceleration could be the necessary breakthrough to make higher energies significantly cheaper than today.
"really squeeze the shit out of it." Could you give some references on that?
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