LHC Configuration and Operational Scenario for Run 3

Abstract

After its second successful run period, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) shut down for three years with the plan of being recommissioned in 2022 for a three-year physics production period, the Run 3. The future restart of the machine coincides with the completion of the LHC Injectors Upgrade (LIU) project, offering to the LHC the opportunity and the challenge to operate with up to two times higher beam brightness, pending the complete installation of the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC), which should take place in Long Shutdown 3 (LS3). In this context, Run 3 is clearly a transition between the LHC and the HL-LHC, with key ingredients which will be made available, either gradually (LIU beam) or immediately (ATS optics). Run 3 shall therefore be exploited not only for performance, but also as a full scale demonstrator of the HL-LHC in terms of beams, optics and beam manipulation (e.g. β∗ levelling over a very large dynamic range). To this aim, the so-called LHC configuration, namely the optics, needs to be adapted in order to cope or mitigate constraints of different nature, from beam brightness limitations due to the machine impedance, to specific desiderata of some LHC experiments. After reviewing these constraints, including the intensity limitations coming from the existing hardware, the beam parameters targeted for the LHC in Run 3 are given. A possible solution for the machine configuration will then be described, and analyzed from various perspectives, which should not limit the machine performance over the full Run 3, and should enable to double the integrated luminosity delivered so far to the two high luminosity insertions of the LHC