Comparison of carbon and HI-Z primary collimators for the LHC phase II collimation system

A current issue with the LHC collimation system is single-diffractive, off-energy protons from the primary collimators that pass completely through the secondary collimation system and are absorbed immediately downbeam in the cold magnets of the dispersion suppressor section. Simulations suggest that the high impact rate could result in quenching of these magnets. We have studied replacing the 60 cm primary graphite collimators, which remove halo mainly by inelastic strong interactions, with 5.25 mm tungsten, which remove halo mainly by multiple coulomb scattering and thereby reduce the rate of single-diffractive interactions that cause losses in the dispersion suppressor.