Hollow Electron Lenses Research Articles

Beam gas curtain monitor: Vacuum studies for LHC integration and operation

A beam gas curtain (BGC) monitor has been designed to obtain information about the relative position between the LHC proton beam and the hollow electron lens electron beam through a minimally invasive process. Its working principle relies on intersecting the path of both beams with a supersonic gas curtain, introduced transversely into the LHC beamline, to produce a fluorescence signal. As an intermediate project stage (phase II), a preliminary version of the BGC monitor has been installed into the LHC beamline. To ensure the successful integration of the monitor and subsequent operation under LHC ultrahigh vacuum conditions, a series of vacuum studies have been performed. These can be classified as follows: An off-line laboratory test campaign, to assess BGC behavior during pump down and gas injections; simulations and analytical calculations, to evaluate BGC behavior and estimate the impact of its installation and operation in the LHC. This document will briefly present the off-line tests campaign, followed by a more extensive description of the simulations performed. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Quench Protection of the HL-LHC Hollow Electron Lens Superconducting Solenoid Magnets

The High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) project is an upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and comprises the installation of two Hollow Electron Lens (HEL) systems, each acting on one beam on both sides of LHC Point 4. The systems aim for a controlled depletion of hadron beam tails and an enhanced hadron beam halo collimation. Each HEL unit contains 22 circuits made up of solenoid, saddle coils and canted cosine theta corrector magnets. The largest magnet is a 1.6 m long solenoid, with a 180 mm bore diameter and central field of 5 T at 300 A and 4.5 K. This contribution focuses on the powering and protection strategy of the solenoid magnet circuits. The circuits are protected by active quench detection and a timely switch-off of the power converter. For the circuit with the largest stored energy, a study is performed on the efficiency of an energy extraction system. The quench simulations performed using the STEAM-LEDET code are combined with uncertainty quantification methods available in the DAKOTA software. Quench simulation input parameters related to the superconducting wire, magnet, circuit, and detection have been parametrized and randomly varied to calculate statistics of key output parameters. These are compared to the allowed limits, namely 500 V maximum peak voltage-to-ground and 120 K maximum coil temperature.

Conceptual Design of the HL-LHC Hollow Electron Lens Superconducting Magnet System

The Hollow Electron Lens (HEL) units are part of the upgrade baseline of the High-Luminosity LHC accelerator (HL-LHC) and will be installed in the machine ring at point P4 on each counter-rotating LHC proton beamline during a long shutdown in 2025-2027 at CERN. The main goal is to improve the collimation system performance by controlling beam energy loss in the beam halo. The magnet system consists of two 1.6 m long, 5 T superconducting solenoids operating at constant current equipped with steering dipole correctors and fringe field coils which compress the annular low energy e-beam (15 keV) generated from the e^− gun cathode and provide a stable interaction region with the high energy proton beam (7 TeV). Other sets of superconducting solenoids up to 4 T are used for fine-tuning and guiding the electron beam at the extremities of the interaction region on both the gun and the collector side. A standalone dipole compensator is part of the system to correct the net transverse field components up to 0.5 T.m. In this paper, the design progress of the HEL magnet system is presented and discussed.

A gas curtain beam profile monitor using beam induced fluorescence for high intensity charged particle beams

A minimally invasive transverse beam profile monitor based on supersonic gas curtain technology and beam-induced fluorescence has been developed and demonstrated. The concept presented can be used to measure both the profile of the proton beam in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the concentricity of the electron and the proton beams in the LHC hollow electron lens. In this Letter, the performance of such a monitor for a low energy electron beam is discussed, which paves the way for its wider implementation.

Nonlinear dynamics of proton beams with hollow electron lens in the CERN high-luminosity LHC

The design stored beam energy in the CERN high-luminosity large hadron collider (HL-LHC) upgrade is about 700 MJ, with about 36 MJ in the beam tails, according to estimates based on scaling considerations from measurements at the LHC. Such a large amount of stored energy in the beam tails poses serious challenges on its control and safe disposal. In particular, orbit jitters can cause significant losses on primary collimators, which can lead to accidental beam dumps, magnet quenches, or even permanent damage to collimators and other accelerator elements. Thus, active control of the diffusion speed of halo particles is necessary and the use of hollow electron lenses (HELs) represents the most promising approach to handle overpopulated tails at the HL-LHC. HEL is a very powerful and advanced tool that can be used for controlled depletion of beam tails, thus enhancing the performance of beam halo collimation. For these reasons, HELs have been recently included in the HL-LHC baseline. In this paper, we present detailed beam dynamics calculations performed with the goal of defining HEL specifications and operational scenarios for HL-LHC. The prospects for effective halo control in HL-LHC are presented.

Signal Analysis and Detection for the BPMs of the LHC Hollow Electron Lens

Signal Analysis and Detection for the BPMs of the LHC Hollow Electron Lens

Non-Invasive Beam Profile Monitoring for the HL-LHC Hollow Electron Lens

Non-Invasive Beam Profile Monitoring for the HL-LHC Hollow Electron Lens

Hollow electron lenses for beam collimation at the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC)

Electrons lenses produce a high-intensity electron beam and have a variety of applications to circular hadron accelerators. Electron beams of different transverse cross sections and distributions may be designed, depending on the desired application, and they are produced and steered along the orbit of the hadron beam, overlapping with it for typical distances of a few meters before being deflected away and disposed of. Hollow electron beams find applications to high-intensity beam collimation for machines like the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Such devices can be integrated in a collimation system to improve the halo-cleaning performance through an active control of the halo dynamics: the annular distribution of the electrons excites resonantly the beam tails surrounding the beam core, while the core itself remains unperturbed, as ideally it only “sees” the field-free “hole” in the electron distribution. Hollow electron lenses are part of the upgrade baseline of the High-Luminosity project of the LHC (HL-LHC) and will be installed in the machine during a long shutdown in 2025–2027 to mitigate effects from beam losses so to improve the collimation system performance. This paper describes the hollow electron lens project within the HL-LHC collimation upgrade.

Design of high-performance guns for the HL-LHC HEL

The High Luminosity LHC project (HL-LHC) foresees the construction and installation of important new equipment to increase the performance of the LHC machine. The Hollow Electron Lens (HEL) is a promising system to control the beam halo. It improves the beam collimation system of the HL-LHC and mitigates possible equipment damage in case of failure scenarios from halo losses. The halo can store up to 30 MJ energy. The specifications for this new device are quite demanding. The source, an electron gun with an annular shaped cathode, must deliver a current up to 5 A. This is five times higher than the current in the existing electron lenses in Fermi and Brookhaven national laboratories. This note describes the programme carried out to design and test high-perveance guns equipped with two types of high-performance scandate cathodes. The size of the final gun for the HL-LHC lenses is now considerably smaller than the one of the first prototype, allowing a reduction of diameter and cost of the superconducting magnet system used to steer the electron beam. The tests carried out at FNAL, BVERI and BJUT demonstrated that the developed cathodes fulfil the specifications and can supply a 5 A fully Space Charge Limited (SCL) current.

Electron dynamics for high-intensity hollow electron beams

Hollow Electron Lenses (HEL) will be installed at the High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider to provide a continuous and controlled depletion of beam halo particles by interaction with a superimposed hollow electron beam, of intensity as high as 5 A, and radii 1.1–2.2 mm for 7 TeV LHC operations. In this paper, issues related to the propagation of high intensity hollow electron beams are discussed and the simulations of the electron beam dynamics with feedback to the HEL design are presented. The main results are the rise of the electron beam accelerating voltage from 10 kV, as in the initial proposal, to 15 kV and the validation of the 5 T magnetic field at the main solenoids as being sufficient to guarantee a stable electron beam.

Resonant and random excitations on the proton beam in the Large Hadron Collider for active halo control with pulsed hollow electron lenses

We present the results of numerical simulations and experimental studies about the effects of resonant and random excitations on proton losses, emittances, and beam distributions in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In addition to shedding light on complex nonlinear effects, these studies are applied to the design of hollow electron lenses for active beam halo control. In the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC), a considerable amount of energy will be stored in the beam tails. To control and clean the beam halo, the installation of two hollow electron lenses, one per beam, is being considered. In standard electron-lens operation, a proton bunch sees the same electron current at every revolution. Pulsed electron beam operation (i.e., different currents for different turns) is also considered, because it can widen the range of achievable halo removal rates. For an axially symmetric electron beam, only protons in the halo are excited. If a residual field is present at the location of the beam core, these particles are exposed to time-dependent transverse kicks and to noise. We discuss the numerical simulations and the experiments conducted in 2016 and 2017 at injection energy in the LHC. The excitation patterns were generated by the transverse feedback and damping system, which acted as a flexible source of dipole kicks. Proton beam losses, emittances, and transverse distributions were recorded as a function of excitation patterns and strengths. The resonant excitations induced rich dynamical effects and nontrivial changes of the beam distributions, which, to our knowledge, have not previously been observed and studied in this detail. We conclude with a discussion of the tolerable and achievable residual fields and proposals for further studies.

Halo removal experiments with hollow electron lens in the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider

A hollow electron beam has been proposed as an active control tool to remove the beam halo from high-energy, high-current hadron or ion machines (such as the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider). To study the halo removal rate and assess the effect on the ion beam core, one of the two electron lenses in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider was changed from a Gaussian beam profile to a hollow profile. We describe the design and verification of the hollow electron beam parameters as well as the methods to minimize the hollow beam profile distortions, which can result in an ion beam emittance increase. The hollow beam alignment with the ion beam by using a backscattered electron detector has been demonstrated. Furthermore, experiments were carried out to explore the efficiency of the halo removal by scanning the current and inner radius of the hollow electron beam, which is pulsed either every turn or every nth turn. The effects of the hollow electron beam on the ion beam emittance and luminosity were also assessed experimentally by scanning the inner radius of the electron beam.

The development programme of cathodes and electron guns for the Hollow Electron Lenses of the High Luminosity LHC project1

The High Luminosity LHC project (HL-LHC) foresees the construction and installation of important new equipment to increase the performance of the LHC machine. The Hollow Electron Lens (HEL) is a promising system to control the beam halo. It improves the beam collimation system of the HL-LHC and mitigates possible equipment damage in case of failure scenarios from halo losses. The halo can store up to 30 MJ energy. The specifications for this new device are quite demanding. The source, an electron gun with an annular shaped cathode, has to deliver a current up to 5 A. This is five times higher than the current in the existing electron lenses in Fermi and Brookhaven national laboratories. This note describes the programme carried out to design and test high-perveance guns equipped with two types of high-performance scandate cathodes. The size of the final gun is now considerably smaller than the one of the first prototype, allowing a reduction of diameter and cost of the superconducting magnet system used to steer the electron beam. The tests carried out at FNAL, BVERI and BJUT demonstrated that the developed cathodes fulfil the specifications and can supply a 5 A fully Space Charge Limited (SCL) current.

Preliminary Mechanical Design Study of the Hollow Electron Lens for HL-LHC

A Hollow Electron Lens (HEL) has been proposed in order to improve performance of halo control and collimation in the Large Hadron Collider in view of its High Luminosity upgrade (HL-LHC). The concept is based on a hollow beam of electrons that travels around the protons for a few meters. The electron beam is produced by a cathode and then guided by a strong magnetic field. The first step of the design is the definition of the magnetic field that drives the electron trajectories. The estimation of such trajectories by means of a dedicated MATLAB tool is presented. The influence of the main geometrical and electrical parameters is analyzed and discussed. Then, the main mechanical design choices for the solenoids, cryostats gun and collector are described. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the feasibility study of the Electron Lens for LHC. The methods used in this study also serve as examples for future mechanical and integration designs of similar devices.

Preliminary Mechanical Design Study of the Hollow Electron Lens for HL-LHC

Preliminary Mechanical Design Study of the Hollow Electron Lens for HL-LHC

Simulation of Hollow Electron Lenses as LHC Beam Halo Reducers using Merlin

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and its High Luminosity (HL) upgrade foresee unprecedented stored beam energies of up to 700 MJ. The collimation system is responsible for cleaning the beam halo and is vital for successful machine operation. Hollow electron lenses (HELs) are being considered for the LHC, based on Tevatron designs and operational experience [1], for active halo control. HELs can be used as soft scraper devices, and may operate close to the beam core without undergoing damage [2]. We use the Merlin C++ accelerator libraries [3] to implement a HEL and examine the effect on the beam halo for various test scenarios.