In 2023, about 2 months of the LHC operation were devoted to the Heavy Ions physics, after more than 5 years since the last ion run. In this paper, the results of the 2023 Ion optics commissioning are reported. Local corrections in Interaction Point (IP) 1 and 5 were reused from the regular proton commissioning, but the optics measurement showed the need for new local corrections in IP2. We observed that an energy trim of the level of 10e-4 helped to reduce the optics errors at top energy. The dedicated measurements during the energy ramp revealed a larger than expected beta-beat, which is consistent with an energy mismatch. Furthermore, global corrections were performed to reach a β-beating of about 5% for the collision optics.

Ionization cooling stands as the only cooling technique capable of efficiently reducing the phase space of a muon beam within a short time frame. The optimal cooling parameters of a muon collider aim to minimize transverse emittance while simultaneously limiting longitudinal emittance growth, resulting in optimal luminosities within the collider ring. This study shows that achieving efficient cooling performance requires selecting the best initial muon beam parameters. Because for every transvere emittance there exist an optimal beam energy for ionization cooling. We present a technique that enables the determination of these optimal initial parameters through simulations and compare them with an improved analytical scattering model.

The LHC machine configuration was changed in 2023 compared to previous years, requiring a new set of optics configurations to be measured and corrected. A telescopic optics was deployed in energy the ramp for the first time, which gave rise to a beta-beating of up to 25%. This was corrected using a global correction approach which reduced the beta-beat down to 10%. A change in the phase advance at injection was also applied to mitigate the negative effect of the main octupoles used to stabilize the beam. These measurements and corrections, coupled with the results from the 2024 commissioning, will be presented in this paper

During 2023, examination of the action dependence of sextupolar resonance driving terms (RDT) in the LHC at injection, as measured with an AC-dipole, demonstrated that a robust measurement of the RDTs could still be achieved even with very small amplitude kicks, typically used for linear optics studies. Consequently, analysis of optics measurements from 2022 and 2023 during the LHC energy ramp allowed a first measurement of the sextupole resonance evolution. A large asymmetry was observed between the two LHC beams, with the clockwise circulating beam (LHCB1) significantly worse than the counter-clockwise circulating beam (LHCB2), and a clear increase in the RDT strength during the ramp was observed. Results are presented and compared to MAD-X simulations, in this report.

In 2023, about 2 months of the LHC operation were devoted to the Heavy Ions physics, after more than 5 years since the last ion run. In this paper, the results of the 2023 Ion optics commissioning are reported. Local corrections in Interaction Point (IP) 1 and 5 were reused from the regular proton commissioning, but the optics measurement showed the need for new local corrections in IP2. We observed that an energy trim of the level of 10e-4 helped to reduce the optics errors at top energy. The dedicated measurements during the energy ramp revealed a larger than expected beta-beat, which is consistent with an energy mismatch. Furthermore, global corrections were performed to reach a β-beating of about 5% for the collision optics.

Ionization cooling stands as the only cooling technique capable of efficiently reducing the phase space of a muon beam within a short time frame. The optimal cooling parameters of a muon collider aim to minimize transverse emittance while simultaneously limiting longitudinal emittance growth, resulting in optimal luminosities within the collider ring. This study shows that achieving efficient cooling performance requires selecting the best initial muon beam parameters. Because for every transvere emittance there exist an optimal beam energy for ionization cooling. We present a technique that enables the determination of these optimal initial parameters through simulations and compare them with an improved analytical scattering model.