• F. Zimmermann, M. Giovannozzi
  CERN, Geneva
• A. Xagkoni
  National Technical University of Athens, Athens

We study the interaction of macro-particles residing inside the LHC vacuum chamber, e.g. soot or thermal-insulation fragments, with the circulating LHC proton beam. The coupled equations governing the motion and charging rate of metallic or dielectric micron-size macro-particles are solved numerically to determine the time spent by such "dust" particles close to the path of the beam as well as the resulting proton-beam losses, which could lead to a quench of superconducting magnets and, thereby, to a premature beam abort.