Performance of SPS Low transition Energy Optics for LHC Ion Beam

An optics with low transition energy has been developed in the SPS for removing intensity limitations of the LHC proton beam and has become operational towards the second part of the 2012 LHC proton run. The impact of this optics in the performance of the LHC ion beam is studied here, especially with respect to collective effects, at the SPS injection energy, based both on modelling and beam measurements. In particular, the potential gain of the increased beam sizes provided by this optics, with respect to losses and emittance blow up due to space-charge and Intrabeam Scattering (IBS) is evaluated. The measured lifetime is compared with the one provided by the Touschek effect and its interplay with RF noise is studied.