Performance and Operational Aspects of HL-LHC Scenarios

Several alternatives to the present HL-LHC baseline configuration have been proposed, aiming either to improve the potential performance, reduce its risks, or to provide options for addressing possible limitations or changes in its parameters. In this paper we review and compare the performance of the HL-LHC baseline and the main alternatives with the latest parameters set. The results are obtained using refined simulations of the evolution of the luminosity with β^{*}-levelling, for which new criteria have been introduced, such as improved calculation of the intrabeam scattering and the addition of penalty steps to take into account the necessary time to move between consecutive optics during the process. The features of the set of optics are discussed for the nominal baseline.