Operational performance of the machine protection systems of the Large Hadron Collider during Run 2 and lessons learnt for the LIU/HL-LHC era

Abstract

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has successfully completed its second operational run in December 2018. To allow for the completion of the diverse physics program at 6.5 TeV, the machine has been routinely operating with stored beam energies up to 300 MJ per beam during high intensity proton runs as well as being frequently reconfigured to allow for special physics runs and important machine development studies. No major damage has incurred to the accelerator equipment throughout the run thanks to the excellent performance of the various machine protection systems. However, a number of important observations and new failure scenarios have been identified, which have been studied experimentally as well as through detailed simulations. In this contribution we provide an overview of the operational performance of the machine protection systems throughout Run 2 as well as the important lessons learnt that will impact consolidation actions and future designs of the machine protection systems for the LIU/HL-LHC era