Speaker
Naeem Tahir
(GSI Darmstadt)
Description
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will generate two counter rotating 7 TeV proton beams, each containing 362 MJ energy that is sufficient to melt 500 kg copper. Safety of operation is an extremely important issue when working with such powerful beams. Any uncontrolled release of a small fraction of the beam energy can cause considerable damage to the equipment. A worst case scenario could be that the entire beam is lost at a given point. In order to study the consequences of such an accident, extensive numerical simulations have been carried out over the past few years. First, the energy loss of the 7 TeV protons is calculated using the FLUKA code [1] that is a fully integrated Monte Carlo particle simulation model capable of treating all components of the particle cascades, up to multi-TeV energies. This data is used as input to a 2D computer code, BIG2 [2], that is used to study the hydrodynamic and thermodynamic response of a solid copper cylindrical target that is facially irradiated with the full LHC beam. It has been found that the LHC protons will penetrate about 35 m in solid copper [3] and the target will be severely damaged. A very interesting outcome of this work has been that the target material will be converted into a huge sample of High Energy Density (HED) matter. In fact the specific energy deposition by the LHC beam in the target is of the same order as is expected at a dedicated facility, FAIR (Facility for Antiprotons and Ion Research) [4-6]. It has therefore been proposed that HED physics studies could be an additional application of the LHC [7]. It is also interesting to note that according to our simulations, the SPS has also the potential to generate HED states in matter.
References
[1] A. Fasso et al., "FLUKA: A Multi-Particle Transport Code", CERN-2005-10, INFN/TC-05/11, SLAC-R-773 (2005).
[2] V.E. Fortov et al., Nucl. Sci. Eng. 123 (1996) 169.
[3] N. A. Tahir et al., J. Appl. Phys. 97 (2005) 083532.
[4] W.F Henning, Nucl. Inst. Meth. A 214 (2004) 211.
[5] N.A. Tahir et al., Phys. Rev. E 63 (2001) 016403.
[6] N.A. Tahir et al., High Energy Density 2 (2006) 21.
[7] N. A. Tahir et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 94 (2005) 135004.
Summary
High Energy Density (HED) Physics is a very important subject as it has very wide applications to numerous areas of basic and applied physics. In addition to that, it has great potential for many lucrative inductrial applications. In tense particle beams have recently been proposed as an excellent tool for studying this subject. One facility that is being constructed at Darmstadt is the FAIR which will generate intense particle beams suitable to study HED matter. LHC is another international facility that will generate extremely powerful particle beams that can be used to study HED matter. This could be an additional, very important application of the LHC.
Primary author
Naeem Tahir
(GSI Darmstadt)
Co-authors
Dr
Alexander Shutov
(IPCP Chernogolovka)
Prof.
Antonio Roberto Piriz
(UCLM Ciudad real)
Prof.
Dieter Hoffmann
(TU Darmstadt)
Prof.
Igor Lomonosov
(IPCP Chernogolovka)
Mr
Juan Blanco
(CERN)
Prof.
Ruediger Schmidt
(CERN)
Prof.
Vladmir Fortov
(IPCP Chernogolovka)
