Operation of the LHC with Protons at High Luminosity and High Energy

In 2015 the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) entered the first year in its second long Run, after a 2-year shutdown that prepared it for high energy. The first two months of beam operation were dedicated to setting up the nominal cycle for proton-proton operation at 6.5 TeV/beam, and culminated with the first physics with 3 nominal bunches/ring at 13 TeV CoM on 3 June. The year continued with a stepwise intensity ramp up that allowed reaching 2244 bunches/ring for a peak luminosity of ~5·10³³ cm⁻²s^{−1} and a total of just above 4 fb-1 delivered to the high luminosity experiments. Beam operation was shaped by the high intensity effects, e.g. electron cloud and macroparticle-induced fast losses (UFOs), which on a few occasions caused the first beam induced quenches at high energy. This paper describes the operational experience with high intensity and high energy at the LHC, together with the issues that had to be tackled along the way.