Performance study of little ionization chambers at the Large Hadron Collider

The main detector type for beam loss monitoring of the LHC is a parallel plate Ionization Chamber (IC). In the locations where the beam losses could saturate the read-out electronics of the ICs, two other monitor types, Little Ionization Chambers (LIC) and Secondary Emission Monitors, have been installed to extend the dynamic range of the ICs. The LICs have the same gas composition and pressure as the ICs, but the active volume is 30 times smaller. This reduction in geometrical acceptance reduces the collected dose and holds the LICs under the saturation limit in high loss events, such as during injection failures. In total there are 108 LICs installed in the LHC. In this document the performance of the LICs and their use in the LHC is discussed.