The C3 community is thrilled with the strong endorsement by the P5 report for the future of the Energy Frontier, prioritizing a Higgs Factory and offering near-term support to the accelerator and detector R&D community.
We are pleased with the explicit mentions in the report of further developing cool copper technology for future applications in colliders.
This is an acknowledgment of the hard work, passion, and creativity of the C3 enthusiasts who helped bring forward a new concept for the community at Snowmass and to P5.
Our request to P5 included resources to demonstrate cold copper stage-2, and this is called out in the report as one of the possible R&D test facility efforts for the next five years. This stage-2 would provide the community with additional data by the time we reach the next decision point following the next European Strategy.
The R&D focus of the P5 recommendations offers a platform to develop “RF accelerators”, which can broadly impact the field - as we highlighted to the panel with connections across the collider spectrum (injector for FCC, synergies for an ILC upgrade, possibly synergies with muon colliders). C^3 could be proven to be a technology development that would advance existing collider proposals or a standalone one. The C3 team is looking forward to being part of the team advancing accelerator technology - we need to have several options to bring the energy frontier back to the USA, depending on what happens in other regions over the next decade.
We also want to continue contributing to studies of machine and beam induced backgrounds, prevalent in all Higgs factories, and provide insight into the low-rate backgrounds that are pertinent in the large datasets of future e+ e- machines.
We were also pleased to see the suggestion to investigate the sustainability of future accelerator facilities. For C3, we have identified multiple R&D activities to improve the sustainability of the full accelerator lifecycle. These studies would be best performed with an exchange of knowledge between concepts, and we are eager to participate.
What is C3?
C3 is an advanced concept for a high energy e+ e- linear collider. The design leverages a cryogenic copper distributed-coupling accelerating structure to lower the operating cost and create an efficient, compact and cost-effective collider.
C3 Design
C3 is planned to run at 250/550 GeV center of mass to study Higgs boson's properties. C3 fits in an 8 km footprint. The energy upgrade is accomplished with only the addition of more RF power sources.
Next Steps
Three white papers were submitted to explore this concept through the Snowmass process. The next steps for C3 include:
- Main Linac R&D remains a significant focus over the timescale of the next P5
- Develop and verify the performance of GeV cryomodules
- Beamline dynamics, alignment and vibrations
The C3 technology has many applications for FEL's, Oncology, Cargo Inspection, electron sources, and industrial use.
