HL-LHC-UK phase 2

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was successfully commissioned in 2010 for proton-proton collisions with a 7 TeV centre-of-mass energy and is now delivering 13 TeV centre-of-mass proton collisions. The LHC is pushing the limits of human knowledge, enabling physicists to go beyond the Standard Model - the Higgs discovery was announced in 2012 - and the LHC has the potential to go on and help answer some of the key questions of our age: the existence, or not, of supersymmetry; the nature of dark matter; the existence of extra dimensions and studying the Higgs boson in more detail. To extend its discovery potential and significantly reduce statistical error, the LHC will need a major upgrade in the 2020s to increase its scientific output by at least a factor of five beyond its design value, this is known as High Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC). HL-LHC-UK is a proposal for a five year project known as HL-LHC-UK2, which will continue the success of HL-LHC-UK and LESS1 prototyping phases and from 1st April 2020 will deliver key series production hardware and key beam physics studies to HL-LHC including crab cavity cryomodules, coldboxes for cold powering, and beam diagnostics hardware as well as collimation studies. The project will receive inward investment into the UK via CERN to enable UK industry to deliver key components to the LHC.

The overall HL-LHC-UK2 project aligns closely with UK, European and global strategies for accelerator and particle physics, where the complete exploitation of the machine is central and of highest priority. The 2017 UK accelerator strategy review states "Recommendation 9 - Maximise the scientific and industrial return on the significant, long- term UK investment in CERN by exploiting synergies across thematic areas, and industry involvement." and states "Due to commence operations in 2025, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) high luminosity project (HL-LHC) is a high priority for both UK and CERN. Current UK contributions to the upgrade research and development include advanced collimators, crab cavities, beam instrumentation and cold-powering systems. Involvement in this project enables the UK to make high profile and important contributions to the LHC machine upgrade". The STFC 2016-2020 delivery plan states "Supporting UK leadership in the technical upgrades at CERN" is a top priority, and also "Developing opportunities to engage industry and other partners earlier in the development of technology solutions".

The work will fund a significant number of STFC staff at the Daresbury Laboratory as well as several academics, PDRAs and PhD Students in 8 individual Universities across the two Accelerator Institutes.

Societal impact - The LHC project at CERN has captured the public examination. During this project HL-LHC-UK staff has been on BBC breakfast, Blue Peter, BBC Radio4, BBC Radio 5Live, BBC Scotland and the Guardian newspaper discussing the project. This is likely to continue in phase 2, and all media articles and appearances will be tracked as a Key performance indicator (KPI). In addition, as part of WP0, HL-LHC-UK will produce a popular science book in conjunction with an established science publisher co-written with professional writers.

Training & Skills impact - The HL-LHC-UK project will train PhD students, graduate engineers, and technicians in key skill such as cryogenics, instrumentation, high performance computing and RF. The project will also retain and attract PDRA's and engineers with key skills in these areas. For example several vacuum, clean room and cryogenic technicians will have been trained in this time for ESS. It is proposed that many of these people would be ideal to work on HL-LHC-UK cryomodule production; hence this would enable highly-skilled staff retention. There are also strong overlaps with future proposed work at Daresbury for DUNE at Fermilab in the US, with similar facilities and staff required. Benefit will also be realised in WP0 though leadership of the UK-wide PhD cohort, taking advantage of this training opportunity on a unique experiment at CERN. A list of staff trained will also be a KPI tracked throughout the project.

Economic impact - The project will involve UK industry in the construction on cryogenic equipment, and beam diagnostics as well as the provision of specialist optic/laser equipment to the project and to CERN. For example the DFX/DFM cryomodule series will be procured from UK companies specialised in high quality custom cryogenic vessels. The total package is estimated at £2m for the UK PLC. There has been a long-standing UK industrial cryogenic expertise among a vibrant SME sector, notably but not exclusively the Oxford Cryogenic Cluster. The project will help to underpin UK's technical skills and knowledge base in accelerator cryogenics, which will be important for future high-energy accelerators under discussion in Europe and China. UK industry is also expected to get heavily involved in the vacuum chambers and shields for the crab cavities. The use of EO-BPMs and supersonic gas jets already now shows great promise for application in many other machines. The close involvement of UK industry ensures that wider markets and applications will be explored.
The number of UK companies engaged with and the nature of this engagement (including the value of any contracts) will be tracked as a KPI.