CERN, Geneva
Nominal beam parameters at 7TeV/c will only be reached after some years of operation, with each proton beam having a stored energy of 360MJ. However, a small fraction of this energy is sufficient to damage accelerator equipment or experiments in case of uncontrolled beam loss. The correct functioning of the machine protection systems is vital during the different operational phases already for initial operation. When operating the complex magnet system, with and without beam, safe operation relies on the protection and interlock systems for the superconducting circuits. For safe injection and transfer of beam from SPS to LHC, transfer line parameters are monitored, beam absorbers must be in the correct position and the LHC must be ready to accept beam. At the end of a fill and in case of failures beams must be properly extracted onto the dump blocks, for some failures within less than few hundred microseconds. Safe operation requires many systems: beam dumping system, beam interlocks, beam instrumentation, equipment monitoring, collimators and absorbers, etc. We describe the commissioning of the LHC machine protection system and the experience during the initial operation.
CERN, Geneva
The movable LHC injection protection devices in the SPS to LHC transfer lines and downstream of the injection kicker in the LHC were commissioned with low-intensity beam. The different beam-based alignment measurements used to determine the beam centre and size are described, together with the results of measurements of the transverse beam distribution at large amplitude. The system was set up with beam to its nominal settings and the protection level against various failures was determined by measuring the transmission and transverse distribution into the LHC as a function of oscillation amplitude. Beam losses levels for regular operation were also extrapolated. The results are compared with the expected device settings and protection level, and the implications for LHC operation discussed.
CERN, Geneva
Poznań University of Technology, Poznań
The LHC beam loss measurement system is mainly used to trigger the beam abort in case a magnet coil quench level is approached. The predicted heat deposition in the superconducting coils of the magnets have been determined by particle shower simulation codes, while the liquid helium cooling capacity of the system has been both simulated and measured. The results have been combined to determine the abort thresholds. Measurements of the energy depositions of lost protons from the initial beams in the LHC are used to determine the accuracy of the beam abort threshold settings. The simulation predictions are reviewed and compared with the measurement results.
CERN, Geneva
Particle losses in the LHC arcs are mainly expected in the interconnection region between a dipole and quadrupole magnet. The maximal beam size, the maximal orbit excursion and aperture changes cause the enhancement of losses at this location. Extensive Geant4 simulations have been performed to characterise this particular region to establish beam abort settings for the beam loss monitors in these areas. Data from first LHC beam loss measurements have been used to check and determine the most likely proton impact locations. This input has been used to optimise the simulations used for the definition of thresholds settings. The accuracy of these settings is investigated by comparing the simulations with actual loss measurements.
CERN, Geneva
Cockcroft Institute, Warrington, Cheshire
The Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) is a proposed multi-TeV linear electron-positron collider being designed by a world-wide collaboration. It is based on a novel two-beam acceleration scheme in which two beams (drive and main beam) are placed in parallel to each other and energy is transferred from the drive beam to the main one. Beam losses on either of them can have catastrophic consequences for the machine because of high intensity (drive beam) or high energy and small emittance (main beam). In the framework of machine protection, a Beam Loss Monitoring system has to be put in place. This paper discusses the requirements for the beam loss system in terms of detector sensitivity, resolution, dynamic range and ability to distinguish losses originating from various sources. A particular attention is given to the two-beam module where the protection from beam losses is particularly challenging and important.
CERN, Geneva
IHEP Protvino, Protvino, Moscow Region
TRIUMF, Vancouver
The LHC has two dedicated cleaning insertions: IR3 for momentum cleaning and IR7 for betatron cleaning. The collimation system has been specified and built with tight mechanical tolerances (e.g. jaw flatness ~ 40 μm) and is designed to achieve a high accuracy and reproducibility of the jaw positions. The practically achievable cleaning efficiency of the present Phase-I system depends on the precision of the jaw centering around the beam, the accuracy of the gap size and the jaw parallelism against the beam. The reproducibility and stability of the system is important to avoid the frequent repetition of beam based alignment which is currently a lengthy procedure. Within this paper we describe the method used for the beam based alignment of the LHC collimation system, its achieved accuracy and stability and its performance at 450GeV.