CERN, Geneva
Initial commissioning of the LHC beam dump system with beam took place in August and September 2008. The preparation, setting-up and the tests performed are described together with results of the extractions of beam into the dump lines. Analysis of the first detailed aperture measurements of extraction channels and kicker performance derived from dilution sweep shapes are presented. The performance of the other equipment subsystems is summarised, in particular that of the dedicated dump system beam instrumentation.
CERN, Geneva
Fast kicker magnets are used to inject beam into and eject beam out of the CERN SPS accelerator ring. These kickers are generally ferrite loaded transmission line type magnets with a rectangular shaped aperture through which the beam passes. Unless special precautions are taken the impedance of the ferrite yoke can provoke significant beam induced heating, over several hours, even above the Curie temperature of the ferrite. At present the nominal bunch spacing in the SPS is 25 ns, however for an early stage of LHC operation it is preferable to have 50 ns bunch spacing. Machine Development (MD) studies have been carried out with an inter-bunch spacing of 25 ns, 50 ns or 75 ns. For some of the SPS kicker magnets the 75 ns bunch spacing resulted in considerable beam induced heating. In addition the MDs showed that 50 ns bunch spacing could result in a very rapid pressure rise in the kicker magnet and thus cause an interlock. This paper discusses the MD observations of the SPS kickers and analyses the available data to provide explanations for the phenomena: possible remedies are also discussed.
