Improvements of the crystal routine for collimation studies

A routine has been implemented to simulate interactions of protons with bent crystals in the collimation version of SixTrack. This routine is optimized in view of producing high-statistics tracking simulations of collimation cleaning assisted by bent crystals. Fine tuning and comparisons with experimental data of coherent effects which a particle can experience in a bent crystal have been carried out. The data taken with 400 GeV beams at the CERN-SPS North Area in the framework of the UA9 experiment are used to benchmark the routine. Further checks on low probability interactions have been made, leading to significant improvements in the description of interactions with crystals. Comparisons with other simulations tools are used to increase our confidence in the scaling to higher energies.