On thermal and radiation damage to silicon crystals in the LHC proton beam

We investigate thermal and radiation effects in silicon crystals which can be used for extracting beam halo particles in high energy accelerators. Application of bent crystals for removing halo is considered as a promising technique to enhance the beam collimation efficiency. Feasibility studies of a crystal-based cleaning system at the LHC have been recently approved in the framework of the UA9 experiment at CERN. In view of these studies and considering the enormous energy density stored in LHC beams, one requires a reliable knowledge of potential crystal damage due to thermal and radiation effects. In this article, we present damage estimates for a silicon strip crystal based on FLUKA simulations and subsequent thermal analysis using ANSYS Workbench. Heating of the crystal is investigated for hypothetical beam impact scenarios. The degradation of deflection efficiency due to radiation effects is estimated for amorphous crystal orientation and is then extrapolated down to channeling mode by evaluating the fraction of incoherent recoils of silicon atoms.