Daniele Mirarchi

Simulations and measurements of beam loss patterns at the CERN Large Hadron Collider

The CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is designed to collide proton beams of unprecedented energy, in order to extend the frontiers of high-energy particle physics. During the first very successful running period in 2010--2013, the LHC was routinely storing protons at 3.5--4 TeV with a total beam energy of up to 146 MJ, and even higher stored energies are foreseen in the future. This puts extraordinary demands on the control of beam losses. An un-controlled loss of even a tiny fraction of the beam could cause a superconducting magnet to undergo a transition into a normal-conducting state, or in the worst case cause material damage. Hence a multi-stage collimation system has been installed in order to safely intercept high-amplitude beam protons before they are lost elsewhere. To guarantee adequate protection from the collimators, a detailed theoretical understanding is needed. This article presents results of numerical simulations of the distribution of beam losses around the LHC that have leaked out of the collimation system. The studies include tracking of protons through the fields of more than 5000 magnets in the 27 km LHC ring over hundreds of revolutions, and Monte-Carlo simulations of particle-matter interactions both in collimators and machine elements being hit by escaping particles. The simulation results agree typically within a factor 2 with measurements of beam loss distributions from the previous LHC run. Considering the complex simulation, which must account for a very large number of unknown imperfections, and in view of the total losses around the ring spanning over 7 orders of magnitude, we consider this an excellent agreement. Our results give confidence in the simulation tools, which are used also for the design of future accelerators.

Comparative results on the deflection of positively and negatively charged particles by multiple volume reflections in a multi-strip silicon deflector

Bent silicon crystals in channeling mode are already used for beam extraction and collimation in particle accelerators. Volume reflection of beam particles is more efficient than beam channeling; however, the mean deflection angle is rather small. An experiment on the deflection of a 400 GeV/c proton beam and a 150 GeV/c π− beam at CERN using a multi-strip silicon deflector in reflection mode is described. The mean deflection angle of beam particles has been considerably increased due to sequential volume reflections realized in the deflector. This gives possibility for a successful usage of the multi-strip deflectors for beam collimation in high-energy accelerators.

Beam Loss Measurements for Recurring Fast Loss Events During 2017 LHC Operation Possibly Caused by Macroparticles

The availability of the LHC machine was adversely affected in 2017 by tens of beam aborts provoked by frequent loss events in one standard arc cell (16L2). In most of the cases, the dumps were triggered by concurrently developing fast beam instabilities leading to particle losses in the betatron cleaning insertion. Many of the events started with a distinct sub-millisecond loss peak comparable to regular dust particle events, which have been observed along all the LHC since the start-up. In contrast to regular dust events, persistent losses developed in cell 16L2 after the initial peaks which can possibly be explained by a phase transition of macroparticles to the gas phase. In this paper, we summarize the observed loss characteristics such as spatial loss pattern and time profiles measured by Beam Loss Monitors (ionization chambers). Based on the measurements, we estimate the energy deposition in macroparticles and reconstruct proton loss rates as well as the gas densities after the phase transition. Differences between regular dust events and events in 16L2 are highlighted and the ability to induce magnet quenches is discussed.

Study of inelastic nuclear interactions of 400 GeV/c protons in bent silicon crystals for beam steering purposes

Inelastic nuclear interaction probability of 400 GeV/c protons interacting with bent silicon crystals was investigated, in particular for both types of crystals installed at the CERN Large Hadron Collider for beam collimation purposes. In comparison to amorphous scattering interaction, in planar channeling this probability is

Simulation of Heavy-Ion Beam Losses with the SixTrack-FLUKA Active Coupling

\sim 36\%

First Results on the SPS Beam Collimation with Bent Crystals

∼36% for the quasi-mosaic type (planes (111)), and

Strong reduction of the off-momentum halo in crystal assisted collimation of the SPS beam

\sim 27\%