Evaluation of the LEP centre-of-mass energy above the W-pair production threshold

Abstract

Knowledge of the beam energy at LEP2 is of primary importance to set the absolute energy scale for the measurement of the W-boson mass. The beam energy above 80 GeV is derived from continuous measurements of the magnetic bending field by 16 NMR probes situated in a number of the LEP dipoles. The relationship between the fields measured by the probes and the beam energy is calibrated against precise measurements of the average beam energy between 41 and 55 GeV made using the resonant depolarisation technique. The linearity of the relationship is tested by comparing the fields measured by the probes with the total bending field measured by a flux loop. Several further corrections are applied to derive the the centre-of-mass energies at each interaction point. The beam energy has been determined with a precision of 25 MeV for the data taken in 1997, corresponding to a relative precision of 2.7x 10^{-4}. Prospects for improvements are outlined.