Short Straight Sections in the LHC Matching Sections (MS SSS): An Extension of the Arc Cryostats to Fulfill Specific Machine Functionalities

Abstract

The LHC insertions require 50 specific superconducting quadrupoles in the matching sections, operating either in 1.9 K superfluid helium or in boiling helium at 4.5 K. These magnets are assembled together with corrector magnets in cold masses, and are inserted in individual cryostats to form the MS Short Straight Sections (MS SSS). The variety of quadrupoles and corrector magnets leads to 10 families of cold masses, with lengths ranging from 5 to 12 m and weights ranging from 60 to 140 kN. The MS SSS need to fulfil specific requirements related to the collider topology, its cryogenic layout and the powering scheme. Most MS SSS are standalone cryogenic and super-conducting units, i. e. they are not in the continuous arc cryostat, and therefore need dedicated cryogenic and electrical feeding. Specially designed cryostat end-caps are required to close the vacuum vessels at each end, which include low heat in-leak Cold-to-Warm transitions (CWT) for the beam tubes and 6 kA local electrical feedthrough for powering the quadrupoles. This paper presents the design of the MS SSS cryostats as an extension of the arc cryostat’s design [1-3], to achieve a standard and consequently cost-effective solution, and the design solutions chosen to satisfy their specific functionalities.