Facility plans for the LHEC

The LHeC aims at the generation of hadron-lepton collisions with center of mass energies in the TeV scale. The existing LHC storage ring with its 7 TeV proton beams is extended by a high energy electron accelerator in the energy range of 60 to 140 GeV. This paper presents technical considerations and parameter choices for such a machine and outlines the challenges of colliding a high intensity high energy proton and electron beam. The LHeC is presently being evaluated in the form of two options, 'ring-ring' and 'linac-ring', either of which operate simultaneously with pp or ion-ion collisions in other LHC interaction regions. Each option takes advantage of recent advances in radio- frequency, in linear acceleration, and in other associated technologies, to achieve ep luminosity as large as 10 33 cm − 2 s − 1.