Feasibility Study of Monitoring the Population of the CERN-LHC Abort Gap with Diamond Based Particle Detectors

At the end of a physics fill and in case of a failure, the LHC beams must be extracted and transferred through a 750m long line to the beam dump block. During the rise of the extraction kickers to their full strength a particle-free abort gap, with a length of 3 us in the LHC filling pattern, is required to prevent beam losses that could lead to substantial quenching of magnets, with a risk of damage. Therefore the particle population in the abort gap, which is mainly due to un-bunched beam, is monitored. Above a certain threshold an active cleaning by excitation of betatron oscillations with the transverse feedback system is initiated. This paper describes a novel method of monitoring the abort gap population using diamond particle detectors for detecting the interactions of beam in the abort gap with neon gas, injected in the beam pipe. Two different layouts of the system and the expected interaction and detection rates are discussed.