A design study for the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) project to upgrade the LHC has been launched with a meeting at CERN to bring together scientists and engineers from 20 institutes in Europe, Japan and the US. The goal is to prepare the ground for an LHC-luminosity upgrade scheduled for around 2020, which aims to take the LHC’s luminosity to 200–300 fb–1/year, a factor of 5–10 above the current design value. Upgrading the LHC for higher luminosity will involve a number of innovative technologies and challenges. These include cutting-edge 12 T superconducting magnets, compact and ultraprecise superconducting cavities for beam rotation, as well as 300-m-long, high-power superconducting links with almost zero energy dissipation.
The meeting on 16–18 November marked the initial step in the HiLumi LHC Design Study, which is supported through the European Commission’s Seventh Framework programme (FP7). Drawing on expertise from around the world, this 1st HiLumi LHC Collaboration Meeting included scientists and engineers from the well established CERN-KEK collaboration and US LHC Accelerator Research Program (LARP). Because it was a joint meeting with LARP, the first day was organized as a LARP collaboration meeting (LARP CM17), with a plenary session followed by two parallel sessions (Accelerator Physics and Magnet R&D), where the accent was on the LARP programme and its results.
The second day included various parallel sessions organized for LARP and for the HiLumi LHC study, as well the first HiLumi LHC Plenary Session, with presentations by the management and technical co-ordination. The first HiLumi LHC Collaboration Board also took place during a period of parallel sessions. The third day was devoted to a HiLumi LHC Public Session in CERN’s Main Auditorium to review the HL-LHC programme and CERN’s plans, as well as to discuss the US and Japanese involvement and the status of various work packages in the HiLumi LHC study.
For more about the meeting, see http://hilumilhc.web.cern.ch/HiLumiLHC/. A more detailed report on the study will appear in the March issue of CERN Courier.
