Noninvasive LHC transverse beam size measurement using inelastic beam-gas interactions

The beam-gas vertex (BGV) detector is an innovative instrument measuring noninvasively the transverse beam size in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) using reconstructed tracks from beam-gas interactions. The BGV detector was installed in 2016 as part of the R&D; for the High-Luminosity LHC project. It allows beam size measurements throughout the LHC acceleration cycle with high-intensity physics beams. A precision better than 2% with an integration time of less than 30 s is obtained on the average beam size measured, while the transverse size of individual proton bunches is measured with a resolution of 5% within 5 min. Particles emerging from beam-gas interactions in a specially developed gas volume along the beam direction are recorded by two tracking stations made of scintillating fibers. A scintillator trigger system selects, on-line, events with tracks originating from the interaction region. All the detector elements are located outside the beam vacuum pipe to simplify the design and minimize interference with the accelerated particle beam. The beam size measurement results presented here are based on the correlation between tracks originating from the same beam-gas interaction vertex.