Overview of the CERN PSB-to-PS Transfer Line Optics Matching Studies in View of the LHC Injectors Upgrade Project

At injection into the CERN Proton Synchrotron (PS) a significant horizontal emittance blow-up of the present high brightness beams for the LHC is observed. A partial contribution to this effect is suspected to be an important mismatch between the dispersion function in the transfer line from the PS Booster (PSB) and the ring itself. This mismatch will be unacceptable in view of the beam parameters requested by the LHC Injectors Upgrade (LIU) project with high longitudinal emittance and momentum spread. To deliver the requested beam parameters the PSB-to-PS transfer line will be upgraded and the optics in the line changed to improve the matching from all the four PSB rings. A re-matching campaign from the PSB ring 3 has been carried out to evaluate the impact of the present optics mismatch as a source of emittance growth both in simulations and measurements.