The factorization bias in the Van der Meer method: Run 2 experiences at the CMS experiment

Abstract

The luminosity measurement of the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC is calibrated with Van der Meer (VdM) scans. A bias occurs in the VdM method due to the assumption of transversely factorizable proton densities of the LHC beams. Here, the different methods applied in Run 2 to estimate the size of the factorization bias are reported. The beam-imaging method reconstructs the transverse proton densities from beam-imaging scans. Additional methods exploit offset scans, analyze the evolution of the measured luminous region, and evaluate diagonal scans.