China could soon rival Europe and the U.S. as a global leader in the field of particle physics. The world's most populous country now also aims to build the world's most powerful supercollider to have a better understanding of the Higgs boson, the so-called god-particle.
China plans an investment of $6 billion to build the facility, which will be at least twice the size of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland. The LHC is currently the world's largest and most powerful particle collider.
The blueprint for the project dubbed the "Higgs Factory" was drafted in 2014 by researchers at China's Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP).
The supercollider will be an underground facility that will smash subatomic particles at enormous speeds so as to generate millions of Higgs boson particles, which scientists believe is one of the fundamental blocks of the universe.
The Higgs boson particle was discovered in 2012 by scientists who used CERN's LHC to smash high-energy proton beams at nearly the speed of light.
Despite its enormous size and power, the LHC has limitations. IHEP director Wang Yifang said that the accelerator may not be capable of generating large quantities of the Higgs boson particles needed to support further studies.
Wang said China's particle accelerator could offer a step closer to unraveling the mysteries of the universe as it will operate at about seven times the energy level of CERN's collider.
Compared to the LHC, which lies in a tunnel 27 kilometers in circumference and 175 meters beneath the France-Switzerland border, the Chinese supercollider will lie in a massive underground ring measuring more than 50 kilometers in circumference.
Qinhuangdao, a northern port city in China, is being considered for the location of the facility given its favorable geological conditions.
Wang said China's version of LHC will be capable of producing large quantities of Higgs boson particles and this may help recreate the conditions following the Big Bang, which could shed light on the origins of universe and matter.
The central government has yet to give approval to the plan, but scientists are optimistic that the research needed to construct the facility can begin as early as late 2016. Construction is anticipated to start by 2021.
