Dynamic aperture computation for the AS-built CERN Large Hadron Collider and impact of main dipoles sorting

During the design phase of the CERN Large Hadron Collider the dynamic aperture, i.e., the amplitude of the domain in phase space where the particle motion is stable, was used as one of the most important figures-of-merit to specify the field quality of the various types of superconducting magnets and to quantify the machine performance. The programme of magnetic measurements performed during the production and acceptance testing of the magnets generated a large amount of information, which was used to obtain a best estimate of the dynamic aperture of the actual machine. In this paper the results of massive numerical simulations based on the measured field quality of several optical configurations and beam energies, are presented and discussed. The effect of the sorting of the main dipoles on the final value of the dynamic aperture has also been studied and the results are reviewed in detail.