Essay: A Path for the Construction of a Muon Collider

Muons are elementary particles and provide cleaner collision events that can explore higher energies compared to composite particles like protons. Muons are also far heavier than their electron cousins, meaning that they emit less synchrotron radiation that effectively limits the energies of circular electron-positron colliders. These characteristics open up the possibility for a muon collider to surpass the direct energy reach of the Large Hadron Collider while achieving unprecedented precision measurements of standard model processes. In this Essay, after briefly summarizing the progress achieved so far, I identify important missing research and development steps and envision a compelling plan to bring a muon collider to reality in the next two decades. A muon collider could allow for the exploration of physics that is not available with current technologies. For example, it may provide a way to study the Higgs boson directly or probe new particles, including those related to dark matter or other phenomena beyond the standard model. Part of a series of Essays which concisely present author visions for the future of their field.