Analysis of losses and emittance growth in the 2024 LHC run and correlation with Dynamic Aperture

This paper presents observations collected during the LHC operation with proton beams in 2024. In particular, a systematic analysis of the beam and machine parameters along the run reveals that the emittance evolution at the LHC injection plateau and during collisions cannot be fully explained by Intra-Beam scattering, synchrotron radiation and electron cloud effects, thus indicating that some beam dynamics effects are missing in the models. During the collapse of the separation bumps, a significant drop in beam lifetime is observed due to the reduction of Dynamic Aperture as the separation reduces and the machine enters into a beam-beam dominated regime. The correlation of beam lifetime in operation and Dynamic Aperture in simulations is demonstrated. Furthermore, a strong correlation is identified between this lifetime reduction and the population of non-Gaussian tails in the transverse beam profiles. The paper also includes the observation of high-frequency power supply ripple in the beam spectrum.