UMAN, Manchester, United Kingdom
University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, United Kingdom
We present large scale simulations of the LHC collimation system using the MERLIN code for calculations of loss maps, currently using up to 1.5·109 halo particles. In the dispersion suppressors following the collimation regions, protons that have undergone diffractive interactions can be lost into the cold magnets. This causes radiation damage and could possibly cause a magnet quench in the future with higher stored beam energies. In order to correctly simulate the loss rates in these regions, a high statistics physics simulation must be created that includes both accurate beam physics, and an accurate description of the scattering of a 7 TeV proton in bulk materials. The current version includes the ability to simulate new possible materials for upgraded collimators, and advances to beam-collimator interactions, including proton-nucleus interactions using the Donnachie-Landshoff Regge-Pomeron scattering model. Magnet alignment and field errors are included, in addition to collimator jaw alignment errors, and their effects on the beam losses are systematically estimated. Collimator wakefield simulations are now fully parallel via MPI, and many other speed enhancements have been made.
University of Malta, Information and Communication Technology, Msida, Malta
CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
Beam-based setup of the LHC collimators is necessary to establish the beam centers and beam sizes at the collimator locations and determine the operational settings during various stages of the LHC machine cycle. Automatic software algorithms have been successful in reducing the costly beam time required for the alignment, as well as significantly reducing human error. In this paper, the beam-based alignment procedure is described, and the design of algorithms such as a BLM feedback loop, parallel collimator alignment, pattern recognition of BLM loss spikes, automatic loss threshold selection and coarse BPM-interpolation guided alignment is explained. A comparison on the alignment results from the 2010 to the 2012 LHC runs is presented to illustrate the improvements achieved with the automatic algorithms.