First calibration of a Cherenkov beam loss sensor at ALICE using SiPM

Abstract

The need for real-time monitoring of beam losses, including evaluation of their intensity and localization of their exact position, together with the possibility to overcome the limitations due to the reduced space for the diagnostics, makes exploitation of the Cherenkov effect in optical fibres, one of the most suitable candidates for beam loss monitoring.In this article, we report on the first tests of an optical fibre beam loss monitor based on large numerical aperture pure silica fibres and silicon photomultipliers. The tests were carried out at the ALICE accelerator research and development facility, Daresbury Laboratories, UK.In contrast to the results already published where the fibres are longitudinally placed with respect to the accelerator beam path and the losses are multidirectional charged particle showers, for the first time a dedicated set-up with an incident accelerator beam impinging directly on the optical fibre was used for optimizing the collection efficiency of the Cherenkov effect as a function of the incident angle by changing the fibre direction. For this purpose large core fibres were used together with the latest generation silicon detector instead of the standard photomultiplier tubes commonly used for Cherenkov beam loss monitoring.The experiments described in this contribution aim to demonstrate the suitability of the optical fibre sensor for loss monitoring, to optimize the Collection Efficiency (CE) of the Cherenkov photons inside the fibre as a function of the particle incident angle, to calibrate the sensor and calculate its sensitivity, and to understand the limits of temporal resolution of losses from different bunches in the accelerator.