UFOs in the LHC after LS1

UFOs (“Unidentified Falling Objects”) are potentially a major luminosity limitation for nominal LHC operation. With large-scale increases of the BLM thresholds, their impact on LHC availability was mitigated in the second half of 2011. For higher beam energy and lower magnet quench limits, the problem is expected to be considerably worse, though. Therefore, in 2011, the diagnostics for UFO events were significantly improved, dedicated experiments and measurements in the LHC and in the laboratory were made and complemented by FLUKA simulations and theoretical studies. In this paper, the state of knowledge is summarized and extrapolations for LHC operation after LS1 are presented. Mitigation strategies are proposed and related tests and measures for 2012 are specified.