Bound-Free Pair Production in LHC Pb-Pb Operation at 6.37 Z TeV per Beam

In the 2015 Pb-Pb collision run of the LHC, the power of the secondary beams emitted from the interaction point by the bound-free pair production process reached new levels while the propensity of the bending magnets to quench is higher at the new magnetic field levels. This beam power is about 70 times greater than that contained in the luminosity debris and is focussed on a specific location. As long foreseen, orbit bumps were introduced in the dispersion suppressors around the highest luminosity experiments to mitigate the risk by displacing and spreading out these losses. An experiment designed to induce quenches and determine the quench levels and luminosity limit was carried out to assess the need for special collimators to intercept these secondary beams.