https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-016-4316-1
Regular Article - Experimental Physics
VHEeP: a very high energy electron–proton collider
1
Max Planck Institute for Physics, Föhringer Ring 6, 80805, Munich, Germany
2
Department of Physics and Astronomy, UCL, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK
* e-mail: mw@hep.ucl.ac.uk
Received:
2
June
2016
Accepted:
10
August
2016
Published online:
17
August
2016
Based on current CERN infrastructure, an electron–proton collider is proposed at a centre-of-mass energy of about 9 TeV. A 7 TeV LHC bunch is used as the proton driver to create a plasma wakefield which then accelerates electrons to 3 TeV, these then colliding with the other 7 TeV LHC proton beam. Although of very high energy, the collider has a modest projected integrated luminosity of 10–100 pb
. For such a collider, with a centre-of-mass energy 30 times greater than HERA, parton momentum fractions, x, down to about 
are accessible for photon virtualities, 
, of 1 GeV
. The energy dependence of hadronic cross sections at high energies, such as the total photon–proton cross section, which has synergy with cosmic-ray physics, can be measured and QCD and the structure of matter better understood in a region where the effects are completely unknown. Searches at high for physics beyond the Standard Model will be possible, in particular the significantly increased sensitivity to the production of leptoquarks. These and other physics highlights of a very high energy electron–proton collider are outlined.
© The Author(s), 2016
