Measurement and interpretation of transverse beam instabilities in the CERN large hadron collider (LHC) and extrapolations to HL-LHC

Abstract

Since the first transverse instability observed in 2010, many studies have been performed on both measurement and simulation sides and several lessons have been learned. In a machine like the LHC, not only all the mechanisms have to be understood separately, but the possible interplays between the different phenomena need to be analysed in detail, including the beam-coupling impedance (with in particular all the necessary collimators to protect the machine but also new equipment such as crab cavities for HL-LHC), linear and nonlinear chromaticity, Landau octupoles (and other intrinsic nonlinearities), transverse damper, space charge, beam-beam (long-range and head-on), electron cloud, linear coupling strength, tune separation between the transverse planes, tune split between the two beams, transverse beam separation between the two beams, etc. This paper reviews all the transverse beam instabilities observed and simulated so far, the mitigation measures which have been put in place, the remaining questions and challenges and some recommendations for the future.