Testing the Global Diffusive Behaviour of Beam-Halo Dynamics at the CERN LHC Using Collimator Scans

In superconducting circular particle accelerators, controlling beam losses is of paramount importance for ensuring optimal machine performance and an efficient operation. To achieve the required level of understanding of the mechanisms underlying beam losses, models based on global diffusion processes have recently been studied and proposed to investigate the beam-halo dynamics. In these models, the building block of the analytical form of the diffusion coefficient is the stability-time estimate of the Nekhoroshev theorem. In this paper, the developed models are applied to data acquired during collimation scans at the CERN LHC. In these measurements, the collimators are moved in steps and the tail population is re-constructed from the observed losses. This allows an estimate of the diffusion coefficient. The results of the analyses performed are presented and discussed in detail.