(SM) around the TeV scale. This belief is founded in the fact that some of the parameters of the SM can be made stable against quantum corrections only by invoking new physics at the TeV scale. With this in mind, an enormous international effort is being poured into the construction of the 14-TeV LHC at CERN, which is expected to run by 2008 and come up with signals for new physics. However, as the LHC is a hadronic machine, it is unlikely to yield signals which are unequivocal as to the underlying theory. It is therefore widely deemed necessary to build a high-energy $e^+ e^-$ collider to confirm the nature and detailed properties of this new physics.

A high-energy $e^+ e^-$ collider operating in the range 500 GeV to a few TeV must be of the linac type to avoid large synchrotron radiation losses. Such a machine would require a very high luminosity in order to be competitive with other accelerators. This is, in fact, an essential feature of the design[@LC] of proposed linear colliders. The relatively clean environment of an $e^+ e^-$ collider allows the complete reconstruction of individual events, making it possible to carry out precision tests of 