A Systematic Analysis of the Prompt Dose Distribution at the Large Hadron Collider

During the operation of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) the continuous particle losses create a mixed particle radiation field in the LHC tunnel and the adjacent caverns. Exposed electronics and accelerator components show dose dependent accelerated aging effects. In order to achieve an optimal lifetime associated to radiation damage, the position of the equipment is chosen in dependency of the amplitude of the radiation fields. Based on the continuous analysis of the data from more than 3900 ionisation chamber beam loss monitors the evolution of the radiation levels is monitored during the accelerator operation. Normalising the radiation fields with either the integrated luminosity or the integrated intensities allows extrapolating the radiation levels of future accelerator operation. In this paper, the general radiation levels in the arcs and the insertion regions at the LHC and their evolution will be presented. The changes in the prompt dose distribution along the LHC between the operation in 2016 and 2017 will be discussed. The impact of different accelerator settings on the local dose distribution will be addressed as well.