Summary notes of the first meeting of the LHC Commissioning Working Group

 

Wednesday March 8th, 14:30

CCC conference room 874/1-011

Persons present

Starting point (Roger)

 

At the LTC of December 14th, the LHC commissioning organisation, which has been elaborated through the LHCOP, was presented and discussed. This outlined the idea of a core commissioning team of shift workers composed of Commissioners, EICs and Operators. The Commissioners are responsible for pushing forward the agreed commissioning program, while the EICs and Operators are responsible for the operation of the commissioned aspects of the machine, and for machine and personnel safety. This core team will draw extensively on specialists responsible for the numerous accelerator systems that comprise the machine.

 

The LHCOP has developed an overall strategy for commissioning the machine, with some details of the various phases that we will go through in preparing the machine for the pilot physics run with 43 on 43 bunches per beam.

 

Steve Myers has asked that we now develop a detailed commissioning plan, as an LHC Commissioning Working Group reporting to the LTC. This should be done by the people who will implement it, namely the core team and accelerator system specialists. This has determined the proposed membership of LHCCWG. Frank Zimmermann has kindly agreed to be scientific secretary.

Aims for 2006

 

Building on what already exists, the aims for the year are;

 

The proposal for the first 5 phases, to be reviewed in March and April, is as follows;

 

1

Injection and First turn

Sector test team (see below)

2

Circulating beam, RF capture

G.Arduini, A.Butterworth

3

450 GeV: initial commissioning

J.Wenninger, F.Zimmermann

4

450 GeV: detailed measurements

S.Fartoukh, M.Giovannozzi, F.Zimmermann

5

450 GeV: 2 beams

R.Assmann, J.Uythoven

 

Brennan pointed out that we should not forget TI2.

 

Sector Test plans for transfer, injection and first turn (Mike)

 

The LHC schedule features a two week beam test in late 2006, which would see injection of beam into a sector of the LHC. Planning for this has been done by the sector test team and detailed information is available at the sector test site. The first aim of this test is injection of beam into the LHC right of point 8 and threading the beam around to a temporary dump located near the Q6 at the right of point 7. Consequently, the tools and techniques for doing this have been identified. Once beam is transported around the sector, it can and will be used for checks of polarity and optics.

 

One issue that has been much discussed was whether to start the sector test with the nominal magnetic cycle in the LHC or to use the degauss cycle. It was decided that we should start with the nominal cycle, to make sure that it works in the limited time available, and use the degauss cycle later for comparison measurements on the dynamic field effects.

 

For machine commissioning, the experience gained from the sector test will of course be extremely useful. The same techniques will be used when making the first turn. One issue that will need to be addressed is the matching of different powering sectors, and this should be treated at the LHCCWG.

AOB

After the meeting Roger informed those responsible for the CCC and the conference room that the noise level in 874/1-011 was uncomfortably high. It seems that there are things that can and will be done, so we will continue with this room.

Next meeting

 

Wednesday March 22nd, 14:30

CCC conference room 874/1-011

 

Data stored during the TI8 tests and the sector test (Mike)

Pros and Cons of 75ns operation (Gianluigi, Frank)

Circulating beam and RF capture (Gianluigi, Andy)

 

 

 

 

 

 Reported by Roger