Chromaticity decay due to superconducting dipoles on the injection plateau of the Large Hadron Collider

It is well known that in a superconducting accelerator a significant chromaticity drift can be induced by the decay of the sextupolar component of the main dipoles. In this paper we give a brief overview of what was expected for the Large Hadron Collider on the grounds of magnetic measurements of individual dipoles carried out during the production. According to this analysis, the decay time constants were of the order of 200 s: since the injection in the LHC starts at least 30 minutes after the magnets are at constant current, the dynamic correction of this effect was not considered to be necessary. The first beam measurements of chromaticity showed significant decay even after few hours. For this reason, a dynamic correction of decay on the injection plateau was implemented based on beam measurements. This means that during the injection plateau the sextupole correctors are powered with a varying current to cancel out the decay of the dipoles. This strategy has been implemented successfully. A similar phenomenon has been observed for the dependence of the decay amplitude on the powering history of the dipoles: according to magnetic measurements, also in this case time constants are of the order of 200 s and therefore no difference is expected between a one hour or a ten hours flattop. On the other hand, the beam measurements show a significant change of decay for these two conditions. For the moment there is no clue of the origin of these discrepancies. We give a complete overview of the two effects, and the modifications that have been done to the field model parameters to be able to obtain a final chromaticity correction within a few units.