Radiative Return Capabilities of a High-Energy, High-Luminosity $e^+e^-$ Collider

Abstract

An electron-positron collider operating at a center-of-mass energy $E_{CM}$ can collect events at all lower energies through initial-state radiation (ISR or radiative return). We explore the capabilities for radiative return studies by a proposed high-luminosity collider at $E_{CM}$ = 250 or 90 GeV, to fill in gaps left by lower-energy colliders such as PEP, PETRA, TRISTAN, and LEP. These capabilities are compared with those of the lower-energy $e^+e^-$ colliders as well as hadron colliders such as the Tevatron and the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Some examples of accessible questions in dark photon searches and heavy flavor spectroscopy are given.