• K. Fuchsberger, V. Baggiolini, R. Gorbonosov, W. Herr, V. Kain, G.J. Müller, S. Redaelli, F. Schmidt, J. Wenninger
  CERN, Geneva

MADX (Methodical Accelerator Design) is the de-facto standard software for modeling accelerator lattices at CERN. This feature-rich software package is implemented and maintained in the programming languages C and FORTRAN. Nevertheless the controls environment of modern accelerators at CERN, e.g. of the LHC, is dominated by JAVA applications. A lot of these applications, for example for lattice measurement and fitting, require a close interaction with the numerical models, which are all defined by the use of the proprietary MADX scripting language. To close this gap an API to MADX for the JAVA programming language (JMAD) was developed. Already the current implementation provides access to a large subset of the MADX capabilities (e.g. twiss-calculations, matching or querying and setting arbitrary model parameters) without any necessity to define the models in yet another environment. This paper describes shortly the design of this project as well as the current status and some usage examples.

• S. Redaelli, M.C. Alabau Pons, M. Giovannozzi, G.J. Müller, F. Schmidt, R. Tomás, J. Wenninger
  CERN, Geneva

The mechanical aperture of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a critical parameter for the operation of the machine due to the high stored beam intensities in the superconducting environment. Betatron and momentum apertures must be therefore precisely measured and optimized. In this paper, we present the results of beam-based measurements of the LHC aperture. The experimental results are compared with the expectations from the as-built model of the LHC aperture, taking into account the optics imperfections of the superconducting magnets. The impact of these measurements on various aspects of the LHC operation are also discussed.

• S. Redaelli, M.C. Alabau Pons, K. Fuchsberger, M. Giovannozzi, M. Lamont, G.J. Müller, F. Schmidt
  CERN, Geneva
• X. Buffat
  EPFL, Lausanne

The control of the high intensity beams of the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is particular challenging and requires a precise knowledge of the critical beam and machine parameters. In recent years efforts were devoted to the design of a software infrastructure aimed at mimicking the behavior of the LHC. An online model of the machine, based on the accelerator design tool MADX, has been developed to support the commissioning and the operation of the LHC. This model is integrated into the JAVA-based LHC software framework and provides the full computing power of MADX, including the best knowledge of the machine aperture and magnetic models. The MADX implementation is server-based and provides various facilities for optics computation to other application clients. In this paper, we present the status of the MADX online application and illustrate how it has been used during the LHC commissioning. Possible future implementations are also discussed.