First Results from the LEIR Ionisation Profile Monitors

The role of the Low Energy Ion Ring, LEIR, is to transform long pulses of lead ions from the Linac 3 to short dense bunches for transfer to the LHC. This is accomplished by the accumulation of up to 4 Linac pulses by electron cooling. In order to non-destructively monitor the cooling performance and determine the accumulated beam characteristics, two prototype ionisation profile monitors have been built and were tested during the LEIR commissioning runs with O4+ and Pb54+ ions in 2006. In this paper we present the results obtained with the prototype monitors, the problems encountered and describe the modifications made for the final design. The modified monitors have been installed on the LEIR machine and are waiting for the next ion run planned in August.