BREACHING THE PHASE I OPTICS LIMITATIONS FOR THE HL-LHC

This paper scrutinizes the performance goal of the HLLHC Project and proposes a solution to reach it. This solution is based on an Achromatic Telescopic Squeezing (ATS) principle which can push β ∗ well below the limits which were identified in the context of the so-called Phase I Upgrade studies. The novel optics scheme is described, with its main weak points, possible mitigation measures and hardware modifications needed in the LHC ring in order to implement it. Other implications or by-products are also highlighted. Some of them are rather exotic and are worth to be mentioned in the abstract even if not completely developed in the paper: the possibility to run with a third low-β experiment installed in IR3 or IR7 (which is an interesting direction for a smooth co-habitation between the HL-LHC and the LHeC), a notable reduction of the IBS growth rate in the longitudinal plane (generally the most critical plane), or a boost by more than one order of magnitude for the efficiency of the Landau octupoles, making them strong enough to shape the head-on beam-beam tune footprint (but without yet any demonstration of the possible benefits) or, at least, to relax the constraints on the transverse impedance budget of the LHC at 7 TeV.