Proof-of-principle direct measurement of Landau damping strength at the Large Hadron Collider with an anti-damper

Landau damping is an essential mechanism for ensuring collective beam stability in particle accelerators. Precise knowledge of the strength of Landau damping is key to making accurate predictions on beam stability for state-of-the-art high-energy colliders. In this Letter, we demonstrate an experimental procedure that would allow quantifying the strength of Landau damping and the limits of beam stability using an active transverse feedback as a controllable source of beam coupling impedance. In a proof-of-principle test performed at the Large Hadron Collider, stability diagrams for a range of Landau octupole strengths have been measured. In the future, the procedure could become an accurate way of measuring stability diagrams throughout the machine cycle.