$^{22}$Na Activation Level Measurements of Fused Silica Rods in the LHC Target Absorber for Neutrals (TAN) Compared to FLUKA Simulations

TL;DR

This study measures the activation of fused silica rods in the LHC's TAN environment, comparing experimental $^{22}$Na activity data with FLUKA simulations, revealing a 35% underestimation by the simulations.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed $^{22}$Na activation measurements of fused silica in the LHC TAN environment and evaluates the accuracy of FLUKA simulations for this context.

Findings

Maximum $^{22}$Na activity was 21 kBq/cm^3.

FLUKA simulations underestimated activity by 35%.

Simulations accurately reproduce activity profiles along the rods.

Abstract

The Target Absorbers for Neutrals (TANs) are located in a high-intensity radiation environment inside the tunnel of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). TANs are positioned about $140$ m downstream from the beam interaction points. Seven $40$ cm long fused silica rods with different dopant specifications were irradiated in the TAN by the Beam RAte of Neutrals (BRAN) detector group during $p$+$p$ data taking from 2016 to 2018 at the LHC. The peak dose delivered to the fused silica rods was $18$ MGy. We report measurements of the $^{22}$Na activation of the fused silica rods carried out at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Argonne National Laboratory. At the end of the irradiation campaign, the maximum $^{22}$Na activity observed was $A=21$ kBq$/{\rm cm^3}$ corresponding to a density, $\rho= 2.5\times 10^{12} /{\rm cm^3}$, of $^{22}$Na nuclei. FLUKA Monte Carlo simulations have been performed by the CERN FLUKA team to estimate $^{22}$Na activities for the irradiated BRAN rod samples. The simulations reproduce the $^{22}$Na activity profile measured along the rods, with a 35% underestimation of the experimental measurement results.