Expected Performance of TOTEM BLMS at the LHC

The TOTEM experiment at the LHC will operate down to 10 sigma from the beam in the forward region of the CMS experiment. The associated beam loss monitors (BLMs) are crucial to monitor the position of the detectors and to provide a rapid identification of abnormal beam conditions for machine protection purposes. In this paper, the response of the TOTEM BLMs is considered for nominal machine operation and the protection thresholds are defined, withcalculations made of the expected signal fromprotons grazing the TOTEM pot as a function of pot distance from the beam, and the BLM signal from proton collisions at the CMS beam interaction point.