LHC Optics Measurement with Proton Tracks Detected by the Roman Pots of the TOTEM Experiment

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel method for measuring LHC beam optics using proton tracks detected by the Roman Pots in the TOTEM experiment, achieving high precision in proton transport understanding.

Contribution

The paper presents a new technique for optics evaluation based on elastically scattered protons, reducing residual uncertainty to below 0.25 percent.

Findings

Residual uncertainty of optics estimation < 0.25%

Method validated through theoretical and Monte Carlo studies

Enhanced accuracy in proton transport measurement

Abstract

Precise knowledge of the beam optics at the LHC is crucial to fulfil the physics goals of the TOTEM experiment, where the kinematics of the scattered protons is reconstructed with the near-beam telescopes -- so-called Roman Pots (RP). Before being detected, the protons' trajectories are influenced by the magnetic fields of the accelerator lattice. Thus precise understanding of the proton transport is of key importance for the experiment. A novel method of optics evaluation is proposed which exploits kinematical distributions of elastically scattered protons observed in the RPs. Theoretical predictions, as well as Monte Carlo studies, show that the residual uncertainty of this optics estimation method is smaller than 0.25 percent.