Advanced Accelerator Concepts

High-energy accelerators have been physicists’ main tools for exploring the building blocks of matter for more than 60 years. During this time the particle energy has increased exponentially as a result of a combination of improvements in existing machines and the invention of new acceleration techniques. Historically, whenever a given type of accelerator has reached the limit of its performance, an innovative idea for particle manipulation, storage, cooling or acceleration has made possible experiments at ever higher energies. The tremendous increase in the energy of accelerators has not, however, been without an increase in capital costs. The cancellation of the Superconducting Super Collider makes timely an examination of possible alternative concepts for investigating some of the same physics.