Performance of the TCDQ diluter system

A single sided mobile graphite diluter block TCDQ, in combination with a two-sided secondary collimator TCS and an iron shield TCDQM, will be installed in front of the superconducting quadrupole Q4 magnets in IR6, in order to protect it and other downstream LHC machine elements from destruction in the event of a beam dump that is not synchronised with the abort gap. The TCDQ and associated elements should also intercept spurious particles in the beam abort gap to prevent quenches from occurring during regular beam aborts, and must also intercept the particles from the secondary halo during low beam lifetime without provoking quenches. In this note the conceptual design of the TCDQ system is briefly presented, with the load conditions and performance criteria. The FLUKA energy deposition simulations are described, and the results discussed in the context of the expected performance levels for LHC operation, in particular for the problems associated with quenching the downstream superconducting Q4 magnet. Options for improvement are elucidated and required future work is defined.