The LHC RF System - Experience with beam operation

The LHC RF system commissioning with beam and physics operation for 2010 and 2011 are presented. It became clear in early 2010 that RF noise was not a lifetime limiting factor: the crossing of the much feared 50 Hz line for the synchrotron frequency did not affect the beam. The broadband LHC RF noise is reduced to a level that makes its contribution to beam diffusion in physics well below that of Intra Beam Scattering. Capture losses are also under control, at well below 0.5%. Longitudinal emittance blow-up, needed for ramping of the nominal intensity single bunch, was rapidly commissioned. In 2011, 3.5 TeV/beam physics has been conducted with 1380 bunches at 50 ns spacing, corresponding to 55% of the nominal current. The intensity per bunch (1.3 1011 p) is significantly above the nominal 1.15 1011. By August 2011 the LHC has accumulated more than 2 fb-1 integrated luminosity, well in excess of the 1 fb-1 target for 2011