XCC: An X-ray FEL-based $\gamma \gamma$ Collider Higgs Factory

arXiv

2203.08484

Date

2022-03-16

Frontier

Accelerator Frontier (AF)

Topical groups

• AF3
• EF1

Submitted by

Timothy Barklow

Abstract

This report describes the design of a $\gamma \gamma$ Higgs factory in which 62.8 GeV electron beams collide with 1 keV X-ray free electron laser (XFEL) beams to produce colliding beams of 62.5 GeV photons. The Higgs boson production rate is 32,000 Higgs bosons per ${10}^7$ second year, roughly the same as the ILC Higgs rate. The electron accelerator is based on cold copper distributed coupling (C${}^3$) accelerator technology. The 0.7 J pulse energy of the XFEL represents a 300-fold increase over the pulse energy of current soft x-ray FEL's. Design challenges are discussed, along with the R\&D to address them, including demonstrators.