A TRUISM of modern physics is that you have to build big to explore the small. That is how a succession of ever-larger accelerators, particularly in the US, laid the foundations for the standard model of particle physics after the second world war. Since then the cutting edge has moved outside the US. Particle physics in the US today is languishing. Cancellation of the Superconducting Super Collider in 1993 left the US without a next-generation accelerator. The Tevatron at Fermilab, outside Chicago, is due to make its final lap in 2010 and jobs are migrating to CERN, the European centre for particle physics near Geneva, where the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will start operating next year.
A report published last week by the US National Research Council suggests the US programme has one shot at a comeback. It hinges on a planned machine called the International Linear Collider, which has emerged as the logical successor to the LHC, and which could yet be built in the US. The ILC would produce collisions between electrons and positrons and offer a precise way to measure the properties of any particles produced, including posited dark matter particles, at energies higher than ever before.
The report declares that winning the ILC should be a high priority for US science. Given Europe鈥檚 commitment to the LHC and the talent and resources soon to be available from Fermilab, that argument makes good sense from a US perspective. There is likely to be stiff competition from Japan, however. Ultimately, and regardless of where the ILC is built, an America hungry to pursue fundamental physics is in everyone鈥檚 interests.
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