Abstract
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) stores two high-energy counter-rotating particle beams consisting of multiple bunches of a nanosecond length. Precise knowledge of the number of particles within each bunch, known as the bunch intensity, is crucial for physicists and accelerator operators. From the very beginning of the LHC operation, bunch intensity was measured by four commercial fast beam current transformers (FBCTs) coupling to the beam current. However, the FBCTs exhibited several shortcomings which degraded the measurement accuracy below the required level. A new sensor, the wall current transformer (WCT), has been developed to overcome the FBCT limitations. The WCT consists of eight small radio frequency (RF) current transformers distributed radially around the accelerator’s vacuum chamber. Each transformer couples to a fraction of the image current induced on the vacuum chamber by the passing particle beam. A network of RF combiners sums the outputs of all transformers to produce a single signal which, after integration, is proportional to the bunch intensity. In laboratory tests and during beam measurements, the WCT performance was demonstrated to convincingly exceed that of the FBCT. All originally installed FBCTs were replaced by four WCTs, which have been serving as the LHC reference bunch intensity sensors since 2016.
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