Simulations of the Full Impact of the LHC Beam on Solid Copper and Graphite Targets

The CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is by far the most powerful accelerator in the world. It is a 26.8 km circumference proton synchrotronwith 1232 superconducting magnets, accelerating two counter–rotating proton beams. When this accelerator will achieve its full capacity, each beam will consist of a bunch train with 2808 bunches and each bunch comprising of 1.15 × 1011 7 TeV protons. The bunch length will be 0.5 ns and two neighboring bunches will be separated by 25 ns while intensity distribution in the radial direction will be Gaussian with a standard deviation, σ = 0.2 mm. In the center of the physics detectors the beam will be focused to a much smaller size, down to a σ of 20 μm. The total duration of the beam will be of the order of 89 μs and the total number of protons in the beam will be 3 × 1014 which is equivalent to 362 MJ energy, sufficient to melt 500 kg copper. Safety of operation is a very important issue when working with such extremely powerful beams. An accidental loss of even a small fraction of the beam energy can severely damage the equipment. A worst case scenario could be loss of the entire beam at a single point. Fortunately, the likelihood of occurrence of an accident of this magnitude is quite remote, nevertheless it is important to quantify the consequences if it ever happens. This important question is addressed in the present article