Operational results from the LHC luminosity monitors
The luminosity monitors for the high luminosity regions in the LHC have been operating to monitor and optimize the luminosity since 2009. The device is a gas ionization chamber inside the neutral particle absorber 140 m from the interaction point and monitors showers produced by high energy neutral particles from the collisions. It has the ability to resolve the bunch-by-bunch luminosity as well as to survive the extreme level of radiation in the nominal LHC operation. We present operational results of the device during proton and lead ion operations in 2010 and make comparisons with measurements of experiments. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN can accelerate proton and lead ion beams to 7 TeV and 547 TeV and produce collisions of these particles. Luminosity measures performance of the LHC and is particularly important for experiments in high luminosity interaction points (IPs), ATLAS (IP1) and CMS (IP5). To monitor and optimize the luminosities of these IPs, BRAN (Beam RAte Neutral) detectors [1, 2] have been installed and operating since the beginning of the 2009 operation [3]. A neutral particle absorber (TAN) protects the D2 separation dipole from high energy forward neutral particles produced in the collisions [4]. These neutral particles produce electromagnetic and hadronic showers inside the TAN and their energy flux is proportional to the collision rate and hence to the luminosity. The BRAN detector is an Argon gas ionization chamber installed inside the TANs on both sides of the IP1 and IP5 and monitors the relative changes in the luminosity by detecting the ionization due to these showers. When the number of collisions per bunch crossing (multiplicity) is small, the shower rate inside the TAN is also proportional to the luminosity. Hence, the detector is designed to operate by measuring either the shower rate (counting mode for low and intermediate luminosities) or the average shower flux (pulse height mode for high luminosities). The detector is also designed (1) to survive the extreme level of radiation ({approx}1 GGy in the nominal condition), (2) to resolve the shower from each bunch crossing (40 MHz in the nominal condition) and measure the bunch-by-bunch luminosities, and (3) to have four independent square shaped channels, each occupying a quadrant, making the detector sensitive to the crossing angle [1, 2]. During the proton operation in 2010, the beam energy was 3.5 TeV and the multiplicity did not exceed four. Because the counting mode is still effective in such a condition [5], the BRAN were operated in the counting mode in 2010. This paper presents operational results of the BRANs during the operation in 2010 (mainly the proton operation) and makes comparisons with measurements of the experiments. The luminosity optimization is discussed in detail in [6] and so this paper focuses on measurements during the normal operation.
- Research Organization:
- Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- DOE - Office Of Science
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC02-98CH10886
- OSTI ID:
- 1013539
- Report Number(s):
- BNL-94203-2011-CP; R&D Project: KBCH139; 18054; KB0202011; TRN: US1102516
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 2011 Particle Accelerator Conference (PAC'11); New York, NY; 20110328 through 20110401
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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