Increasing collision energy in hadron collders doesn\'t always improve the abiil
ID: 1259261 • Letter: I
Question
Increasing collision energy in hadron collders doesn't always improve the abiilty to hunt down the Higgs. I know that if the Higgs mass is just above LEP exclusion, then even 7 TeV is too high to be optimum. However, I don't know the situation for a ~125 GeV Higgs.
If the Higgs mass is really around 125 GeV as recent data suggest, does it make sense for the LHC to increase the energy next year to 8 TeV, and does it make sense for the LHC to shutdown at the end of next year to prepare for 14 TeV run? Of course, increasing the collision energy generally benefits BSM searches, but I'm asking the question assuming only the Higgs is taken into consideration.
Explanation / Answer
First of all, the Higgs will be 5-sigma discovered after the 2012 data, even at 7 TeV.
Second of all, after the 2013-14 break, the LHC will probably restart at 13 TeV, not 14 TeV, in 2015.
Third of all, see
How many fb?1 for the most likely 5? 115 Gev Higgs at the 7 Tev LHC?
to notice that it doesn't hurt if you raise the energy. The required number of collisions drops approximately inversely proportionally