APERTURES IN THE LHC BEAM DUMP SYSTEM AND BEAM LOSSES DURING BEAM ABORT

The LHC beam dumping system (LBDS) is used to dispose accelerated protons and ions in a wide energy range from 450 GeV up to 7 TeV. An abort gap of 3 μs is foreseen to avoid sweeping particles through the LHC ring aperture. This paper gives a brief overview of the critical apertures in the extraction region and the two beam dump lines. MAD-X tracking studies have been made to investigate the impact of particles swept through the aperture due to extraction kicker failures or the presence of particles within the abort gap. The issue of failures during beam abort is a major concern for machine protection as well as a critical factor for safe operation of the experiments and their detectors.