Simulation framework and measurements of crystal collimation of proton beams at the Large Hadron Collider

Abstract

Thanks to its versatility in deploying large kicks with high efficiency, crystal channeling is being integrated more and more into modern particle accelerators. For example, at the CERN Large Hadron Collider, crystals are used, or planned to be used for collimation and fixed-target opportunities for the Physics Beyond Colliders studies. In order to predict and optimize the performance in present and future applications, it is very important to have reliable simulation tools that integrate the crystal effects on the beam with multi-turn tracking. This work shows the setup of a simulation including magnetic tracking, detailed aperture models, particle-matter interactions as well as coherent physics processes in the crystals, using the coupling between SixTrack and FLUKA. A series of simulation tool benchmarks for collimation of multi-TeV protons has been carried out with LHC data.