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

/ Authors

T. Barklow, S. Dong, C. Emma, J. Duris, Zhirong Huang, Adham Naji, E. Nanni, J. Rosenzweig, A. Sakdinawat, Sami G. Tantawi

and 7 more authors

Glen White Slac Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford, Menlo Park, Ca, Particle Beam Physics Laboratory, U. California, Los Angeles

/ 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 34,000 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.