An Alternative High Luminosity LHC with Flat Optics and Long-Range Beam-Beam Compensation

In the baseline scenario of the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC), the geometric loss of luminosity in the two high luminosity experiments due to collisions with a large crossing angle is recovered by tilting the bunches in the interaction region with the use of crab cavities. A possible backup scenario would rely on a reduced crossing angle together with flat optics (with different horizontal and vertical β∗ values) for the preservation of luminosity performance. However, the reduction of crossing angle coupled with the flat optics significantly enhances the strength of long-range beam-beam interactions. This paper discusses the possibility to mitigate the long-range beam-beam effects by current bearing wire compensators (or e-lens). We develop a new HL-LHC parameter list and analyze it in terms of integrated luminosity performance as compared to the baseline. Further, we evaluate the operational scenarios using numerical simulations of single-particle dynamics with beam-beam effects.