The University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom
Cockcroft Institute, Warrington, Cheshire, United Kingdom
A beam halo monitor is an essential device to pursue studies of halo particles produced in any particle accelerator as to investigate the effects of disturbances, such as field kicks, gradient errors, etc. A fast, least intrusive, high dynamic range monitor will allow the detection and potentially control of particles at the tail of a transverse beam distribution. Light generated by a beam of charged particles is routinely used for beam diagnostic purposes. A halo monitor based on a digital micro-mirror device (DMD) used to generate an adaptive optical mask to block light in the core of the emitted light profile and hence limit observation to halo particles has been developed in close collaboration with CERN and University of Maryland. In this contribution an evolution of this monitor is presented. A high definition micro-mirror array with 1920x1080 pixels has been embedded into a MATLAB-based control system, giving access to even higher monitor resolution. A masking algorithm has also been developed that automates mask generation based on user-definable thresholds, converts between CCD and DMD geometries, processes and analyses the beam halo signal and is presented in detail.
