Online storage ring optimization using dimension-reduction and genetic algorithms

Understand

Particle storage rings are a rich application domain for online optimization algorithms.

• The Cornell Electron Storage Ring (CESR) has hundreds of independently powered magnets, making it a high-dimensional test-problem for algorithmic tuning.
• We investigate algorithms that restrict the search space to a small number of linear combinations of parameters ("knobs") which contain most of the effect on our chosen objective (the vertical emittance), thus enabling efficient tuning.
• We report experimental tests at CESR that use dimension-reduction techniques to transform an 81-dimensional space to an 8-dimensional one which may be efficiently minimized using one-dimensional parameter scans.