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The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is protected against potentially dangerous beam losses by a distributed system based on some four thousand beam loss monitors. To provide an additional level of safety, the LHC has been equipped with a system to detect fast beam intensity drops and trigger a beam dump for potentially dangerous rates. This paper describes the architecture of the system and its signal processing, optimized to cope with dump thresholds in the order of 0.01 % of the circulating beam intensity. The performance of the installed system is presented based upon beam measurements., Proceedings of the 11th International Beam Instrumentation Conference, IBIC2022, Kraków, Poland

The betatron tune in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is measured using a Base-Band-Tune (BBQ) system. Processing of these BBQ signals is often perturbed by 50Hz noise harmonics present in the beam. This causes the tune measurement algorithm, currently based on peak detection, to provide incorrect tune estimates during the acceleration cycle with values that clearly oscillate between neighbouring harmonics. The LHC tune feedback cannot be used to its full extent in these conditions as it relies on stable and reliable tune estimates. In this work we present two alternative tune measurement algorithms, designed to mitigate this problem by ignoring small frequency bands around the 50Hz harmonics and estimating the tune from spectra with gaps. One is based on Gaussian Processes and the other is based on a weighted moving average. We compare the tune estimates of the new and present algorithms and put forward a proposal that can be implemented during the renovation of the BBQ system for the next physics run of the LHC., Proceedings of the 9th International Beam Instrumentation Conference, IBIC2020, Santos, Brazil

The compensation of the long-range beam-beam interactions using DC wires is presently under study as an option for enhancing the machine performance in the frame of the High-Luminosity LHC project (HL-LHC). The original idea dates back more than 15 years. After the installation of four wire prototypes in the LHC in 2018, a successful experimental campaign was performed during the last months. The experimental setup and the main results are reported in this paper., Proceedings of the 10th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2019, Melbourne, Australia

Due to limitations with non-invasive beam size diagnostics in the LHC, particularly during the energy ramp, there has been an interest to explore quadrupolar-based measurements for estimating the transverse beam size, and hence determining the transverse emittance. This technique is especially attractive as it is completely passive and can use the existing beam position instrumentation. In this work, we perform an analysis of this method and present recent measurements taken during energy ramps. Quadrupolar-based measurements are compared with wire-scanner measurements and a calibration strategy is proposed to overcome present limitations., Proceedings of the 8th International Beam Instrumentation Conference, IBIC2019, Malmö, Sweden

Requirements for diagnostics of injection matching and beam space charge effects have driven studies at CERN using high sensitivity tune measurement systems based on diode detectors for the observation of quadrupolar beam oscillations in the frequency domain. This has led to an extension of such tune systems to include a channel optimised for quadrupolar oscillation measurements. This paper presents the principles of such measurements, the developed hardware and example measurements., Proceedings of the 8th International Beam Instrumentation Conference, IBIC2019, Malmö, Sweden

Quadrupolar moment measurements based on electromagnetic pick-ups (PU), like BPMs, have attracted particular interest as non-intercepting diagnostics to determine the transverse beam size. Here, the second-order moment, which contains information about the beam size, is extracted from the BPM electrode signals. Despite the simplicity of the concept, quadrupololar measurements have always been challenging in practice. This is related to the fact that the quadrupolar moment constitutes only a very small part of the total PU signal, which is dominated by the contributions of beam intensity and position. In this study we discuss the limitations of absolute quadrupolar measurements if applying traditional BPM technologies, and we propose a new approach to efficiently overcome them via movable PUs. Moreover, we highlight the potential use of BPMs as an emittance measurement system during the energy ramp at synchrotrons by performing differential quadrupolar measurements, which show a remarkably higher accuracy than absolute measurements. Dedicated studies using different types of BPMs in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN demonstrated promising results., Proceedings of the 61\textsuperscript{st} ICFA ABDW on High-Intensity and High-Brightness Hadron Beams, HB2018, Daejeon, Korea

In 2017, the LEIR accelerator has been operated with Xe³⁹⁺ beam for fixed target experiments in the SPS North Area. The different ion species, with respect to the usually operated Pb⁵⁴⁺, allowed for additional comparative measurements of tune shift versus intensity at injection energy both in coasting and bunched beams. The fast transverse instability observed for high accumulated intensities has been as well characterized and additional observations relevant to impedance have been collected from longitudinal Schottky signal and BTF measurements. The results of these measurements are summarised and compared to the currently developed machine impedance model., Proceedings of the 9th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2018, Vancouver, BC, Canada

The Extra Low ENergy Antiproton ring (ELENA) at CERN entered the commissioning phase in November 2016 using H⁻ ions and antiprotons to setup the machine at the different energy plateaus. The low intensities and energy of the ELENA beam generate very weak signals making beam diagnostics very challenging. With a circulating beam current of less than 1 μA and an energy where the beam annihilates in less than a few microns of matter, special care was taken during the design phase to ensure an optimal performance of these measurement devices once installed on the ring and transfer lines. A year on we present the performance of the various devices that have been deployed to measure the beam parameters from the extraction point of the Antiproton Decelerator (AD), through the ELENA ring and in the experimental lines., Proceedings of the 9th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2018, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Measurements with quadrupolar pick-ups (PU) have attracted particular interest as non-intercepting diagnostics for determining the transverse beam size. They are based on processing the signals of an electromagnetic PU for the extraction of the second-order moment, which contains information about the beam size. Despite the simplicity of the concept, quadrupololar measurements have always been highly challenging in reality. This comes from the fact that the quadrupolar moment constitutes only a very small part of the total PU signal dominated by the intensity and the position signals. Therefore, the beam size information can easily be lost due to small imperfections in the signal processing chain, such as asymmetries in the electronics and cables. In this paper, we present a new method for quadrupolar measurements using movable PUs. Through position and aperture scans, our technique minimizes the parasitic beam position signal and takes into account imperfections of the PU, cables and electronics, thus enabling an efficient auto-calibration of the measurement system. Preliminary studies, using collimators with embedded electrostatic PUs in the LHC at CERN, have shown very promising results., Proceedings of the 9th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2018, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Transverse coupling has been linked to instabilities and reduction in dynamic aperture and is hence a crucial parameter to control in the LHC. In this article we describe the development to use driven oscillations to measure the transverse coupling with high intensity beams. The method relies on the use of the transverse damper to drive an oscillation in a similar way as with an AC-dipole. The calculation of the coupling is based on the turn-by-turn data from all available BPMs gated for the excited bunch., Proceedings of the 9th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2018, Vancouver, BC, Canada

The Wall Current Transformer (WCT) is a new bunch-by-bunch intensity monitor developed by the CERN Beam Instrumentation Group to overcome the performance issues of commercial Fast Beam Current Transformers (FBCT) observed during Run 1 of the LHC. In the WCT the large magnetic cores commonly used in FBCTs are replaced with small RF transformers distributed around the beam pipe. Rather than directly measuring the beam current, the WCT measures the image current induced by the beam on the walls of the vacuum chamber. The image current is forced to flow through a number of screws which form the single-turn primary windings of the RF transformers. The signals of the secondary windings are combined and the resulting pulse is filtered, amplified and sent to the acquisition system. This paper presents the principle of operation of the WCT and its performance based on laboratory and beam measurements., Proceedings of the 5th Int. Beam Instrumentation Conf., IBIC2016, Barcelona, Spain

The CERN Proton Synchrotron (PS) is a crucial component of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) injector complex. The PS role is to provide beams of high brightness and with the required time structure. In this paper, we present the results of bunch-by-bunch tune measurements by using turn-by-turn transverse beam position monitors (BPMs). The data from different BPMs are combined together to allow fast and accurate tune measurements for each bunch. The obtained results are compared with the present PS tune-meter system and the specific advantages and limits of this technique are commented and exemplified., Proceedings of the 8th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2017, Copenhagen, Denmark

The LHC started high-energy operation in 2015 with new tertiary collimators, equipped with beam position monitors embedded in their jaws. The required resolution and stability of the beam orbit measurements linked to these BPMs were addressed by the development of a new Diode ORbit and OScillation (DOROS) system. DOROS converts the short BPM electrode pulses into slowly varying signals by compensated diode detectors, whose output signals can be precisely processed and acquired with 24-bit ADCs. This scheme allows a sub-micrometre orbit resolution to be achieved with robust and relatively simple hardware. The DOROS system is also equipped with dedicated channels optimised for processing beam oscillation signals. Data from these channels can be used to perform betatron coupling and beta-beating measurements. The achieved performance of the DOROS system triggered its installation on the beam position monitors located next to the LHC experiments for testing the system as an option of improving the beam orbit measurement in the most important LHC locations. After introducing the DOROS system, its performance is discussed through both, beam and laboratory measurements., Proceedings of the 5th Int. Beam Instrumentation Conf., IBIC2016, Barcelona, Spain

Absolute calibration of systems with no DC response requires pulsed calibration circuits. This paper presents a precise pulsed current source designed primarily for remote calibration of a beam intensity measurement system. However, due to its simple and flexible design, it might also prove interesting for other applications. The circuit was designed to drive a load of 10 Ω with current pulses lasting a few hundred microseconds with an amplitude of 1 A and precision in the order of 0.01%. The circuit is equipped with a half-bridge for precise determination of the absolute output current using the 0 V method. This paper presents the circuit topology and discusses in detail the choice of the critical components along with their influence on the final achieved accuracy. The performance of the built prototype of the current source is presented with laboratory measurements., Proceedings of the 5th Int. Beam Instrumentation Conf., IBIC2016, Barcelona, Spain

During Long Shutdown 1, 18 Large Hadron Collider (LHC) collimators were replaced with a new design, in which beam position monitor (BPM) pick-up buttons are embedded in the collimator jaws. The BPMs provide a direct measurement of the beam orbit at the collimators, and therefore can be used to align the collimators more quickly than using the standard technique which relies on feedback from beam losses. Online orbit measurements also mean that margins in the collimation hierarchy placed specifically to cater for unknown orbit drifts can be reduced, therefore increasing the beta-star and luminosity reach of the LHC. In this paper, the first operational results are presented, including a comparison with the standard alignment technique and a fill-to-fill analysis of the measured orbit in different machine modes in the first year of running after the shutdown., Proceedings of the 7th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2016, Busan, Korea

The Diode ORbit and OScillation System (DOROS) system is designed to provide accurate measurements of the beam position in the LHC. The oscillation part of the system, which is able to provide turn-by-turn data, is used to measure the transverse coupling. Since the system provides high resolution measurements for many turns only small excitations are needed to accurately measure the transverse coupling. In this article we present the performance the system to measure coupling and compare it to the BPMs not equipped with this system., Proceedings of the 7th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2016, Busan, Korea

During the Run I in 2012, several instabilities have been observed at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) during the Betatron squeeze. The predictions of instability thresholds are based on the computation of the beam Landau damping by calculating the Stability Diagrams (SD). These instabilities could be explained by a deterioration of the SD due to beam-beam resonance excitation which could change the particle distributions. Beam Transfer Functions (BTF) provide a measurement of the Stability Diagram. The BTFs are sensitive to the particle detuning with amplitude as well as to the particle distributions therefore they represent a powerful tool to understand experimentally the stability of beams during the LHC operational cycle. First BTF measurements at the LHC are presented for different machine configurations and settings and compared to predictions., Proceedings of the 7th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2016, Busan, Korea

In the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), over 100 movable collimators are connected to a three-tier control system which moves them to the required settings throughout the operational cycle from injection to collision energy. A dedicated control system was developed to align the collimators to the beam during machine commissioning periods and hence determine operational settings for the active run. During Long Shutdown 1, the control system was upgraded to allow beam-based alignments to be performed using embedded beam position monitors in 18 newly installed collimators as well as beam loss monitors. This paper presents the new collimation controls architecture for LHC Run II along with several modifications in the Java-based application layer., Proceedings of the 15th Int. Conf. on Accelerator and Large Experimental Physics Control Systems, ICALEPCS2015, Melbourne, Australia

CERN is currently constructing an Extra Low ENergy Antiproton ring (ELENA), which will allow the further deceleration of antiprotons from the currently exploited Antiproton Decelerator (AD). In order to meet the challenges of ELENA the beam instrumentation systems of the CERN AD are being consolidated and upgraded. An updated controls architecture with a more flexible timing system needs to be adopted and obsolete systems must be replaced. This paper presents the status and plans for improved performance and measurement availability of the AD beam instrumentation with a decreased risk of failure., Proceedings of the 5th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2014, Dresden, Germany

The beta function has a fundamental impact on the LHC performance and on the functioning of its machine protection and collimation systems. A new beta-beat diagnostic system, prototyped at the SPS, has been used to verify the time-dependent variations of the LHC lattice with unprecedented 1% beta-beta resolution and at a measurement bandwidth of about 1 Hz., Proceedings of the 1st International Particle Accelerator Conference, IPAC2010, Kyoto, Japan

The LHC deploys a comprehensive suite of beam-based feedbacks for safe and reliable machine operation. This contribution summarises the commissioning and early results of the LHC feedback control systems on orbit, tune, chromaticity, and energy. Their performance – strongly linked to the associated beam instrumentation, external beam perturbation sources and optics uncertainties – is evaluated and compared with the feedback design assumptions., Proceedings of the 1st International Particle Accelerator Conference, IPAC2010, Kyoto, Japan