Using permanent magnets to boost the dipole field for the High-Energy LHC

The High-Energy LHC (HE-LHC) will be a new accelerator in the LHC tunnel based on novel dipole magnets, with a field up to 20 T, which are proposed to be realized by a hybrid-coil design, comprising blocks made from Nb- Ti, Nb$_{3}$Sn and HTS, respectively. Without the HTS the field would be only 15 T. In this note we propose and study the possibility of replacing the inner HTS layer by (weaker) permanent magnets that might contribute a field of 1-2 T, so that the final field would reach 16-17 T. Advantages would be the lower price of permanent magnets compared with HTS magnets and their availability in principle.