Settings for Improved Betatron Collimation in the First Run of the High Luminosity LHC

The current betatron collimation system in the LHC is not optimized to absorb off-momentum particles scattered out from the primary collimators. The highest losses are concentrated in the downstream dispersion suppressor (DS). Given the increased beam intensity in the High Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC), there is concern that these losses could risk quenching the superconducting DS magnets. Consequently, a dedicated upgrade of the DS has been studied. However, at this stage, the deployment for the startup of the HL-LHC is uncertain due to delays in the availability of high-field magnets needed to integrate new collimators into the DS. In this paper, we describe the expected collimation setup for the first run of the HL-LHC and explore various techniques to improve the collimation cleaning. These include exploiting the asymmetric response of the two jaws of each primary collimator and adjusting the locally generated dispersion in the collimation insertion.