The Diamond Beam Loss Monitoring System at CERN LHC and SPS

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) accelerators are equipped with 17 pCVD diamond based Beam Loss detectors at strategical locations where their nanosecond resolution can provide insights into the loss mechanisms and complement the information of the standard ionization chamber type detectors. They are used at the injection and extraction lines of the LHC and SPS, to analyse the injection or extraction efficiency, and to verify the timing alignment of other elements like kicker magnets. They are used at the betatron collimation region and are being also explored as detectors to analyse slow extractions. The acquisition chain was fully renovated during the second LHC long shutdown period (from December 2018 to July 2022) to provide higher resolution measurements, real-time data processing and data reduction at the source as well as to integrate seamlessly to the controls infrastructure. This paper presents the new hardware platform, the different acquisition modes implemented, the system capabilities and initial results obtained during the commissioning and operation at the beginning of the LHC’s Run 3.