Why a Muon Collider?
The Large Hadron Collider, now under construction at CERN, will permit the study of hadron-hadron collisions and will be a center for high energy physics research for decades to come. At the same time, physicists need to carry out the complementary detailed studies of lepton-lepton collisions, so the present plan of the physics community calls for the design and construction of the International Linear Collider (ILC), the purpose of which is the study of electron-positron collisions. We are striving to advance the science and technology of muon colliders, as an alternative or follow-on to the ILC, because muons have a significant advantage over electrons – muons are 200 times heavier, so muon beams are much less subject to energy loss from synchrotron radiation in magnetic fields. That is, very high energy muon beams (unlike similar electron beams) can be bent in beam lines and can be recirculated in an accelerator. Therefore, muon recirculating colliders can reach very high energies a
