Mathematical formulation to predict the harmonics of the superconducting Large Hadron Collider magnets. II. Dynamic field changes and scaling laws

Abstract

A superconducting particle accelerator like the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) at CERN, can only be controlled well if the effects of the magnetic field multipoles on the beam are compensated. The demands on a control system solely based on beam feedback may be too high for the requirements to be reached at the specified bandwidth and accuracy. Therefore, we designed a suitable field description for the LHC (FIDEL) as part of the machine control baseline to act as a feed-forward magnetic field prediction system. FIDEL consists of a physical and empirical parametric field model based on magnetic measurements at warm and in cryogenic conditions. The performance of FIDEL is particularly critical at injection when the field decays, and in the initial part of the acceleration when the field snaps back. These dynamic components are both current and time dependent and are not reproducible from cycle to cycle since they also depend on the magnet powering history. In this paper a qualitative and quantitative description of the dynamic field behavior substantiated by a set of scaling laws is presented.