News: 24 June 2009
The LHC collimator project completes phase 1
The final phase 1 LHC collimator has been installed in the tunnel. The collimators are installed around the LHC ring and the transfer lines to absorb ‘stray’ particles that have spread out, forming a halo around the beam. It is important to absorb this halo to protect the rest of the machine from damage, in particular the superconducting magnets, where any slight heating by the ‘stray particles’ could cause a magnet quench. The one-meter long collimators absorb the particles in the halo by closing a set of ‘jaws’ of various materials around the beam; the most robust collimators use fiber-reinforced graphite.
Before the start-up last year, 88 collimators were installed. The unforeseen shutdown caused by the incident in Sector 3-4, allowed the collimator team to continue with the final 20 collimators necessary to maximize the LHC intensity and luminosity reach with the phase 1 collimation system. This marks the end of 6.5 years of hard work since the project began.
Work is continuing on phase 2 of the collimator project, to install additional collimators ready for the LHC upgrade, which will have higher intensity beams.
The last collimator being installed at point 8 on 23 June.
