Chinese scientists on Wednesday released a conceptual design report of the world's largest and most technologically advanced electron collider and disclosed that Xiongan, a new economic zone in North China's Hebei Province, is one of the leading candidate sites for the construction. 

The Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences released   the conceptual design report (CDR) for the Circular Electron Positron Collider (CEPC), a planned next-generation particle collider in China.

A two-volume report covering the technical details on the major parts of the project was released at the event, drawing a successful close to the project's conceptual design stage.

"The release of the CEPC CDR, signed by over 1,100 physicists from 221 institutions of 26 countries, is a significant milestone along the long road toward the realization of the CEPC and provides a complete description of the project from the science to the design options for both the accelerator and detectors," IHEP said in a statement sent to the Global Times on Wednesday. 

The site selection started in February 2015, among which five sites are on the short list: Qinhuangdao and Xiongan in Hebei Province; Huzhou in East China's Zhejiang Province; Shenshan Special District in South China's Guangdong Province; and Huangling county in North China's Shaanxi Province, the statement said.

"These sites excel in their geographical and geologic conditions for the actual construction of the CEPC, which is mainly underground," Ruan Manqi, a fellow researcher at the IHEP, told the Global Times. 

He noted that "other factors including  population density in the area and industrial and scientific facilities in the surrounding areas, have also been taken into consideration, to maximize the synergies between this gigantic scientific facility and the economic/technological boost."

According to Ruan, so far, all local governments for the candidate sites have shown great support for the project.

Volume I of the report covers the design of the accelerator complex  including the linear accelerator and the dampening ring. Volume II presents the physics case for the CEPC, and describes the detector concepts and their technological options.

The CEPC project is expected to be completed around 2030, and will have a circumference of 100 kilometers, with a center-mass energy up to 240 giga electron-volts, both setting world records. 

In the planned 10-year operation, the super collider will produce over one million Higgs bosons, one hundred million W bosons and close to one trillion Z bosons. (Global Times)