Notes on LEP luminosity performance in July and August

The LEP luminosity performance at 94.5 GeV is examined for two periods of the 1998 run. The analysis is meant to complement other ongoing studies. The studies presented here analyze the performance in terms of specific luminosity. The large amount of available data is filtered through quality cuts and appropriate averaging and binning algorithms. The results show that the beam-beam limit is being a pproached in high current LEP operation. This is seen in an increase of vertical beam size and a reduction of specific luminosity with current. Though the effect is clear for both analyzed periods of time, it is also shown that the full beam-beam limit is not yet reached. Over a fill the reduction of specific luminosity with beam current is less than half of the one expected in the fully beam-beam limited regime. It is shown that the measured positron lifetime can be fully explained from the beam-beam interaction. It turns out that the beam lifetime is indeed an excellent way to measure the ab solute luminosity in LEP, providing a potentially usefull tool for luminosity optimization. Work is underway to implement an online display in the LEP control room.