LHC Operational Experience of the 6.5 TeV Proton Run with ATS Optics

In May 2017, the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) restarted operations at 6.5 TeV using the Achromatic Telescopic Squeeze (ATS) scheme with a target beta-star of 40 cm in ATLAS and CMS. The number of bunches was progressively increased to a maximum of 2556 with emittances of 2.5 um. In August, several machine parameters had to be re-tuned to mitigate beam loss induced instabilities and maintain a steady increase of the instantaneous luminosity. The use of a novel beam type and filling pattern produced in the injectors, allowed filling the machine with very low emittance beam (1.5 um) achieving an equivalent luminosity with 1868 bunches. In September, the beta-star was further lowered to 30 cm (using, for the first time, the telescopic technique of the ATS) and the bunch intensity pushed to 1.25·10¹¹ protons. In the last 3 months of 2017, the LHC produced more than 500 pb-1 of integrated luminosity per day, delivering to each of the high luminosity experiments 50.6 fb-1, 10% above the 2017 target. A general overview of the operational aspects of the 2017 proton run will be presented.