There’s a strange particle in my coffee

Local residents wondered what was in their coffee, or rather how it and other matter came to be, at the “Ichinoseki Science Cafe" held on Sunday in the south of Iwate Prefecture.

Associate Professor Tomoyuki Sanuki of the Department of Physics at Tohoku University spoke about the science of the proposed International Linear Collider (ILC); the history of the project in Japan and developments to the present; evaluation of the candidate site; concerns such as effect on environment; logistics of transporting equipment inland and underground; establishing an international school; and so on.

Ichinoseki City began holding the Science Cafes last year to further understanding of the ILC project among residents. The Japanese national government will give its yay or nay on the project in a few years time, and if it is yay, Japan is expected to become a world leader in particle physics for the next 50 to 100 years, and an international science city would be created in the Tohoku region of northern Japan.

So what is this proposed ILC?

The ILC would accelerate electrons from one end of an underground tunnel and positrons (positive electrons if you will) from the other end 31 kilometers away, colliding them in the center in Ichinoseki’s northeast at nearly the speed of light. The high energy collisions would be observed by detectors and analysis would provide more insight into the "Higgs boson" - the particle discovered by CERN in Switzerland in 2012 - and further the search for new particles.

Sound expensive? It sure is. The ILC project requires a huge financial investment and international cost sharing is essential. As host of the facility Japan would foot about half the bill. The rest needs to come from international partners, who at this point are yet to explicitly define the ILC project in their budgets. According to the Summary of the International Linear Collider (ILC) Advisory Panel’s Discussions to Date released on June 25, construction of the accelerators are estimated at some 990 billion yen, detectors would be about 100 billion and then running costs would come close to 50 billion a year.

The summary also says the ILC would generate domestic demand of 2.1 trillion yen and production worth 4.46 trillion. In other words, the project would generate thousands of jobs across a broad range of industries, driving recovery in the region and innovation worldwide. There is much about matter and this universe that we don’t know. Interestingly it was research at CERN which led to the birth of the internet you are looking at right now.

So why the Kitakami Highlands in Tohoku?

The Kitakami Highlands are one of the few places in the world ideal for building the ILC. The area features a 50km stretch of stable granite bedrock free of active fault lines. As electrons and positrons are tiny invisible particles, a stable bedrock free of vibration is required to collide them accurately. Securing a stable length of 30-50km is also important. While the Tohoku region was devastated by the Great East Japan Earthquake, underground was found to be very stable. The ILC would be built in highlands at an elevation of 100m above sea level.

How can you find out more? Check out Ichinoseki’s ILC website, and stay up-to-date via Facebook and Twitter.

About the author Nathan Hill has lived in Ichinoseki City since 2013, starting work as Internationalization Coordinator in the city’s ILC Promotion Division in 2015. From Perth in Western Australia, where he worked at the Consulate-General of Japan, he likes early morning jogs through the countryside, photography, the Tohoku shinkansen and other trains.

© Japan Today