Impact of 7-TeVc large hadron collider proton beam on a copper target

The large hadron collider (LHC) will allow for collision between two 7 TeVc proton beams, each comprising 2808 bunches with 1.1× 1011 protons per bunch, traveling in opposite direction. The bunch length is 0.5 ns and two neighboring bunches are separated by 25 ns so that the duration of the entire beam is about 89 μs. The beam power profile in the transverse direction is a Gaussian with a standard deviation of 0.2 mm. The energy stored in each beam is about 350 MJ that is sufficient to melt 500 kg of copper. In case of a failure in the machine protection systems, the entire beam could impact directly onto an accelerator equipment. A first estimate of the scale of damage resulting from such a failure has been assessed for a solid copper target hit by the beam by carrying out three-dimensional energy deposition calculations and two-dimensional numerical simulations of the hydrodynamic and thermodynamic response of the target. This work has shown that the penetration depth of the LHC protons will be between 10 and 40 m in solid copper. These calculations show that material conditions obtained in the target are similar to those planned for beam impact at dedicated accelerators designed to study the physics of high-energy-density states of matter, for example, the Facility for Antiprotons and Ion Research at the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung, Darmstadt [W. F. Henning, Nucl. Instrum Methods Phys. Res. B 214, 211 (2004)].