The LHC Injectors Upgrade (LIU) Project at CERN: Ion Injector Chain

The LHC injector chain for Pb-ion beams at CERN consists of Linac3, the accumulator ring LEIR, the PS and the SPS. In the context of the LHC injectors upgrade (LIU) project an intense program of machine development studies has been performed in the last two years to maximise the intensity of Pb-ion beams at LHC injection. In this paper we present an analysis of the operational performance achieved so far, with the goal of 1) identifying the remaining performance bottlenecks along the chain and possible areas for improvement, and 2) to optimize the Pb-ion beam production scheme for the High Luminosity (HL-) LHC era. A consistent set of beam parameters for the HL-LHC era has been established taking into account the already achieved improvements as well as foreseen upgrades still to be implemented, such as slip stacking in the SPS.