Van der Meer Scan Luminosity Measurement and Beam-Beam Correction

TL;DR

This paper presents a new non-linear simulation method for correcting beam-beam electromagnetic interactions in van der Meer scans, improving luminosity calibration accuracy at the LHC.

Contribution

It introduces an exact non-linear beam-beam force simulation for van der Meer scans, enhancing correction precision over previous linear approximations.

Findings

New simulation differs by ~1% from previous methods.

Improved correction will be used in future LHC luminosity calibrations.

Reduces systematic bias in luminosity measurements.

Abstract

The main method for calibrating the luminosity at Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is van der Meer scan where the beams are swept transversely across each other. This beautiful method was invented in 1968. Despite the honourable age, it remains the preferable tool at hadron colliders. It delivers the lowest calibration systematics, which still often dominates the overall luminosity uncertainty at LHC experiments. Various details of the method are discussed in the paper. One of the main factors limiting proton-proton van der Meer scan accuracy is the beam-beam electromagnetic interaction. It modifies the shapes of the colliding bunches and biases the measured luminosity. In the first years of operation, four main LHC experiments did not attempt to correct the bias because of its complexity. In 2012 a correction method was proposed and then subsequently used by all experiments. It was based, however, on a simplified linear approximation of the beam-beam force and, therefore, had limited accuracy. In this paper, a new simulation is presented, which takes into account the exact non-linear force. Depending on the beam parameters, the results of the new and old methods differ by $\sim1\%$. This needs to be propagated to all LHC cross-section measurements after 2012. The new simulation is going to be used at LHC in future luminosity calibrations.