Limitations on Optics Measurements in the LHC

In preparation of the optics commissioning at an energy of 6.5 TeV, many improvements have been done to cope with the expected reduced signal to noise ratio due to lowered bunch intensities imposed by machine protection considerations. This included, among others, an increase of the flat top duration of the AC dipole excitations, which allowed to use more turn-by-turn data for the analysis. The longer data acquisition revealed slow drifts of the optics, which limited the increased measurement precision. Furthermore, we will present how orbit drifts influenced dispersion measurements and, as a consequence, posed another limitation for the optics correction. In this paper we will discuss the implications of these observations for the measurement and correction of the optics.