LHC BFPP Quench Test with Ions (2015)

The 2015 Pb-Pb collision run of the LHC operated at a beam energy of 6.37Z TeV. The power of the secondary beams emitted from the interaction point by the bound-free pair production (BFPP) process reached new levels while the propensity of the bending magnets to quench is higher at the new magnetic field levels. This beam power is about 70 times greater than that contained in the luminosity debris and is focussed on a specific location. As long foreseen, orbit bumps were introduced in the dispersion suppressors around the highest luminosity experiments to mitigate the risk of quenches by displacing and spreading out these losses. Because the impact position and intensity of these secondary beams is well known and can be tracked easily with the Beam Loss Monitors (BLMs), the BFPP1 beam (208Pb81+ ions), which is the most intense, provides a tool to accurately measure the steady state quench limit of the LHC main dipoles. At the moment the exact quench limit is not known, but this knowledge is important to assess the need for special collimators to intercept these secondary beams. This note describes the procedure and preliminary results of a test conducted on the main dipole in cell 11 left of IP5, using the BFPP1 beam to provoke a quench of this magnet.