Position Monitoring System for HL-LHC Crab Cavities

The high luminosity upgrade for the LHC at CERN (HL-LHC project) will extend the discovery potential of the LHC by a factor 10. It relies on key innovative technologies like superconducting cavities for beam rotation, named 'crab cavities'. Two crab cavities will be hosted in a superconducting cryostat working at a cold (<3 K). The position of each cavity will be monitored during the cool-down and the operation in order to comply with the tight alignment tolerances: the misalignment of a cavity axis w.r.t. the other will have to be lower than 0.5 mm and each cavity roll w.r.t. the cryostat axis will have to be lower than 1 mrad. Moreover, the monitoring system will have to be radiation hard (up to 10 MGy) and maintenance free. We propose a solution based on the Frequency Scanning Interferometry to provide the position monitoring of the crab cavities. This paper describes the design and study of such a solution, including the engineering approach, the issues encountered and the lessons learnt.