EUROPEAN ORGANIZATION FOR NUCLEAR RESEARCH
New MAD-X Support Rule
Frank Schmidt
At the beginning of 2006 CERN is gearing up for the LHC sector test
and only next year from now we want to commission the LHC! It is
therefore mandatory to relocate manpower to the most urgent needs of
the LHC. For MAD-X this implies that we cannot continue a full-blown
development of the code. However, the system of module keepers will
stay in place and they will respond to your questions. Moreover, I
will personally maintain the link to the PTC code.
This change of support will mean in detail:
- For any problem with a specific MAD-X module please contact
exclusively the module keepers ( find
here).
- No changes will be made to the code to safeguard against user
errors.
- MAD-X features will not be modified if there is a known
work-around.
- In case of trouble please first contact an experienced MAD-X
user for help.
- We will deal with serious bugs if they limit the use of MAD-X for
the LHC.
- It will be appreciated if minor bugs, work-arounds, features are
reported to the mad-X_bug_report. This is for reference only
and might be attacked at a later stage.
- There will be no further MAD-X Day reunions.
There is still some developing work in the pipeline that will be
completed soon:
- Implementation of non-linear matching.
- Upgrade of the thin-lens tracking code.
- Documentation of the PTC modules: ptc_track, ptc_twiss and
ptc_normal and clean-up when needed.
- It should also be noted that there is a well manned CLIC effort to
use PTC in conjunction with MAD-X.
- Moreover, it is very easy to add additional modules to MAD-X if
the code writer is willing to invest into the interfaces (to be
discussed in each individual case).
Frank.Schmidt@cern.ch