Analysis of the b2 correction in the Tevatron

Beam loss and emittance dilution during ramping from injection to collision energy is observed in the Tevatron, now in its collider run-II stage. It is well known that the sextupole (b2) components in the superconducting dipole magnets decay during the injection plateau and snap back rapidly at the start of the ramp. These so called dynamic effects, which were originally discovered in the Tevatron, are compensated with the chromaticity correctors, distributed around the ring. Imperfect control of the chromaticity during injection and snapback can contribute to the beam loss. Therefore a thorough investigation of the b2 compensation in the Tevatron was launched, including beam chromaticity measurements and offline magnetic measurements on Tevatron dipoles. This paper reports the status of this investigation. A companion paper describes in detail the results of the magnet measurements. This work was partly conducted as a collaboration between FNAL and CERN.