Studies of Horizontal Instabilities in the CERN SPS

In the framework of the LHC Injectors Upgrade (LIU), beams with double intensity with respect to the present values will have to be successfully accelerated by the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) and extracted towards the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). However, first experience running with intensity higher than the nominal LHC beam has shown that coherent instabilities in the horizontal plane may develop, becoming a potential intensity limitation for the future high intensity operation. To understand the mechanism of these instabilities, the PyHEADTAIL code has been used to check if the SPS impedance model reproduces the observations. The instability growth rates have been studied for different machine models and different chromaticity settings. In addition, the effect of other stabilizing methods, like the octupoles and the transverse damper, has also been investigated. Measurements are presented to benchmark the simulations.