The LHC Post-mortem System

The energy stored in the beam and the magnets of the LHC is of unprecedented scale compared to other existing accelerators. The LHC machine is protected from an uncontrolled release of this energy by a large number of interlock channels. The LHC machine interlock system manages the interlock conditions and has as main task to trigger safe extraction of the energy stored in the electrical circuits and in the beams. To operate the machine in the presence of such a large interlock system requires powerful diagnostics to trace back the origin of power and beam related problems. This diagnostics tool, called herein the post-mortem system, has the role of organizing the collection and analysis of transient data recorded around a beam or power abort by all relevant LHC equipment systems. A first conceptual design of the LHC post-mortem system is presented in this document together with the main requirements for the LHC equipment systems.