In this paper we discuss the latest developments for the FCC-ee interaction region layout, which represents one of the key ingredients to establish the feasibility of the FCC-ee. The collider has to achieve extremely high luminosities over a wide range of center-of-mass energies with two or four interaction points. The complex final focus hosted in the detector region has to be carefully designed, and the impact of beam losses and of any type of synchrotron radiation generated in the interaction region, including beamstrahlung, have to be evaluated in detail with simulations. We give an overview of the progress of the whole machine-detector-interface-related studies, among which are the updated mechanical model of the interaction region, the plans for a novel R&D activity of a IR mockup which is just starting, the collimation scheme and evaluation of beam induced backgrounds in the detectors, evaluation of radiation dose in the experimental area, and MDI integration with the detector.

In autumn 2023, the FCC Feasibility Study underwent a crucial “mid-term review”. We describe some accelerator performance risks for the proposed future circular electron- positron collider, FCC-ee, identified for, and during, the mid-term review. For the collider rings, these are the collective effects when running on the Z resonance – especially resistive wall, beam-beam, and electron cloud –, the beam lifetime, dynamic aperture, alignment tolerances, and beam-based alignment. For the booster, the primary concern is the vacuum system, with regard to impedance and effects of the residual gas. For the injector, the layout and the linac repetition rate are primary considerations. We discuss the various issues and report the planned mitigations.

The FCC-ee could allow the measurement of the electron Yukawa coupling via direct Higgs s-channel production at ~125 GeV centre-of-mass (CM) energy, provided that the CM energy spread of this channel, can be reduced to about 5–10 MeV to be comparable to the width of the standard model Higgs boson. The natural collision-energy spread at 125 GeV, due only to synchrotron radiation (SR), is about 50 MeV. Its reduction to the desired level can be accomplished by means of “monochromatization”, e.g., through introducing non-zero dispersion of opposite sign at the Interaction Point (IP), for the two colliding beams. This nonzero dispersion at the IP (horizontal or vertical) could be generated by different methods, requiring or not modifications of the Final Focus System (FFS) Local Chromaticity Correction (LCC) system. In this paper we report and compare the different recent Interaction Region (IR) optics design of this new possible collision mode.