A New Lead Ion Injection System for the CERN SPS with 50 ns Rise Time

The LHC High Luminosity upgrade project includes a performance upgrade for heavy ions. One of the present performance limitations is the rise time of the SPS injection kicker system, which imposes a spacing of at least 220 ns between injected bunch trains at the operational rigidity. A reduction of this rise time to 50 ns for lead ions is requested as part of the suite of measures needed to increase the present design performance by a factor three. A new injection system based on a fast pulsed septum and a fast kicker has been proposed to fulfil this rise time requirement, and to meet all the constraints associated with the existing high intensity proton injection in the same region. This paper describes the concept and the required equipment parameters, and explores the implications of such a system for SPS operation.