The International Linear Collider (ILC) site evaluation committee of Japan announced the result of assessment of two candidate sites in Japan in a press conference held at the University of Tokyo on August 23, 2013. They recommended the Kitakami mountains in the Iwate and Miyagi prefectures as a location.
The search for an appropriate candidate site for the construction of the ILC in Japan has been ongoing since 1999. More than ten candidate sites were announced in 2003. In 2010, the list was further reduced to two—Kitakami in the northeast of the main island of Japan, and Sefuri in Kyushu, the southwest island. A process to assess these two remaining candidates started in January in order to narrow them down from a scientific point of view.
Within Japan, a site evaluation committee of eight members was formed and an additional two sub-committees of sixteen technical experts and twelve socio-environmental experts were separately created to provide expertise on issues such as geological conditions, environmental impact, possible problems during construction and the social infrastructure of each candidate site.
After more than 300 hours of meetings, the site evaluation committee made a tentative choice in early July. This choice was then submitted and reviewed by an international review committee. The international review committee recognized that the process to choose the site to be reviewed had been conducted with great care, and the chosen site has excellent geological conditions for tunneling and stability.
Brian Foster, Linear Collider Collaboration (LCC)’s regional director for Europe read aloud the message from Lyn Evans, director of LCC, which said, “Linear Collider Collaboration will now start the site-specific design based on the Kitakami site.”
The scientific case for building the ILC is very strong and has the support of the global high-energy physics community. “It, together with the LHC at CERN in Geneva, will allow us to take the next steps in understanding our universe,” said Evans.
