The Path to Very High Energy Colliders - Spencer Gessner (Stanford, SLAC)

Abstract: The Snowmass Energy Frontier Report states: “Direct searches for specific models have placed strong bounds around 1-2 TeV. Thus, the energy frontier has moved beyond the TeV scale and the exploration of the 10 TeV scale becomes crucial to shed light on physics beyond the Standard Model.” Possible options for 10 TeV-scale parton collisions include proton colliders operating at 100 TeV CM energy, muon colliders, and electron-positron or gamma-gamma linear colliders. In this talk, I will briefly cover the technical challenges for hadron and muon colliders. Next, I will describe a path to 10 TeV-scale collisions that begins with a linear collider Higgs Factory and continues on to higher energies using advanced accelerator technologies. Throughout the talk, I will describe R&D topics that we are currently pursuing or plan to pursue here at SLAC that advance our field towards our 10 TeV goals.