Beam Gas Curtain Installed in the Large Hadron Collider
University of Liverpool’s ongoing collaboration with CERN and GSI reaches new heights as the Beam Gas Curtain (BGC) device is installed on the Large Hadron Collider during the year end technical stop. The Beam Gas Curtain device is a non-invasive beam profile monitor that uses supersonic gas jets and the phenomenon of beam induced fluorescence to capture a 2D profile image of a particle beam. The QUASAR Group has been leading the research and development of this exciting new technology for the past 13 years with several prototypes and three graduated PhD students. The installed instrumentation could give a precise measurement of the beam parameters such as beam size and emittance. Diagnostic devices like this helps ensure safe operation of the machine and furthers our understanding of the beam dynamics, allowing the potential to reach even higher energies for physics collisions.
Liverpool PhD students Oliver Stringer and Ondrej Sedlacek (both in white) and collaborators from CERN standing next to the Beam Gas Curtain, installed on the LHC. (Image: CERN/Maximilien Brice)
This installation marks a great achievement for Liverpool’s physics department, attesting to the word “collaboration” where tens of thousands of hours of work between the members at Liverpool, CERN and GSI has brought the project to this point. The team are very excited for their world-first results once the LHC restarts beamtime in April.
Further information:
'Characterization of a supersonic molecular beam for charged particle beam profile monitor', H.D. Zhang, A.Salehilashkajani, O. Sedlacek, C.P.Welsch, Vacuum, Volume 208, February 2023, 111701 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vacuum.2022.111701
'A gas curtain beam profile monitor using beam induced fluorescence for high intensity charged particle beams', A. Salehilashkajani, H.D. Zhang, et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 120, 174101 (2022); https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0085491