829 research outputs found
First observations of beam losses due to bound-free pair production in a heavy-ion collider
We report the first observations of beam losses due to bound-free pair
production at the interaction point of a heavy-ion collider. This process is
expected to be a major luminosity limit for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)
when it operates with 208Pb82+ ions because the localized energy deposition by
the lost ions may quench superconducting magnet coils. Measurements were
performed at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) during operation with
100 GeV/nucleon 63Cu29+ ions. At RHIC, the rate, energy and magnetic field are
low enough so that magnet quenching is not an issue. The hadronic showers
produced when the single-electron ions struck the RHIC beampipe were observed
using an array of photodiodes. The measurement confirms the order of magnitude
of the theoretical cross section previously calculated by others.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures. Added journal ref. Corrected typos. Fixed fig 1.
Minor improvements to fig. 1,3,4. Rephrased a small number of sentences
(p1,3,4). Added numerical values of the aperture and the displacement for Au
(p 2). Changed reference 5, added name in acknowledgments (p 4
The high-intensity hyperon beam at CERN
A high-intensity hyperon beam was constructed at CERN to deliver Sigma- to
experiment WA89 at the Omega facility and operated from 1989 to 1994. The setup
allowed rapid changeover between hyperon and conventional hadron beam
configurations. The beam provided a Sigma-flux of 1.4 x 10^5 per burst at mean
momenta between 330 and 345 Gev/c, produced by about 3 x 10^10 protons of 450
GeV/c . At the experiment target the beam had a Sigma-/pi- ratio close to 0.4
and a size of 1.6 x 3.7 cm^2. The beam particle trajectories and their momenta
were measured with a scintillating fibre hodoscope in the beam channel and a
silicon microstrip detector at the exit of the channel. A fast transition
radiation detector was used to identify the pion component of the beam.Comment: 20 pages, 13 figures. Submitted to Nucl. Instr. Meth.
Beam losses from ultra-peripheral nuclear collisions between Pb ions in the Large Hadron Collider and their alleviation
Electromagnetic interactions between colliding heavy ions at the Large Hadron
Collider (LHC) at CERN will give rise to localized beam losses that may quench
superconducting magnets, apart from contributing significantly to the
luminosity decay. To quantify their impact on the operation of the collider, we
have used a three-step simulation approach, which consists of optical tracking,
a Monte-Carlo shower simulation and a thermal network model of the heat flow
inside a magnet. We present simulation results for the case of Pb ion operation
in the LHC, with focus on the ALICE interaction region, and show that the
expected heat load during nominal Pb operation is 40% above the quench level.
This limits the maximum achievable luminosity. Furthermore, we discuss methods
of monitoring the losses and possible ways to alleviate their effect.Comment: 17 pages, 20 figure
Hadron beam test of a scintillating fibre tracker system for elastic scattering and luminosity measurement in ATLAS
A scintillating fibre tracker is proposed to measure elastic proton
scattering at very small angles in the ATLAS experiment at CERN. The tracker
will be located in so-called Roman Pot units at a distance of 240 m on each
side of the ATLAS interaction point. An initial validation of the design
choices was achieved in a beam test at DESY in a relatively low energy electron
beam and using slow off-the-shelf electronics. Here we report on the results
from a second beam test experiment carried out at CERN, where new detector
prototypes were tested in a high energy hadron beam, using the first version of
the custom designed front-end electronics. The results show an adequate
tracking performance under conditions which are similar to the situation at the
LHC. In addition, the alignment method using so-called overlap detectors was
studied and shown to have the expected precision.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures. Submitted to Journal of Instrumentation (JINST
- …