Crystal channeling of LHC forward protons with preserved distribution in phase space

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that bent crystals can effectively trap and steer a broad distribution of protons at the LHC with high precision, enabling improved measurement of very forward protons.

Contribution

It introduces a novel crystal-based method for trapping and preserving the phase space distribution of protons, enhancing detection efficiency at the LHC.

Findings

90% trapping efficiency for diffractively scattered protons

Proton angles preserved with 0.1 microrad accuracy

Potential for 100-fold efficiency improvement

Abstract

We show that crystal can trap a broad (x, x', y, y', E) distribution of particles and channel it preserved with a high precision. This sampled-and-hold distribution can be steered by a bent crystal for analysis downstream. In simulations for the 7 TeV Large Hadron Collider, a crystal adapted to the accelerator lattice traps 90% of diffractively scattered protons emerging from the interaction point with a divergence 100 times the critical angle. We set the criterion for crystal adaptation improving efficiency ~100-fold. Proton angles are preserved in crystal transmission with accuracy down to 0.1 microrad. This makes feasible a crystal application for measuring very forward protons at the LHC.