Work

Performance of short and long bent crystals for the TWOCRYST experiment at the Large Hadron Collider

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: This study investigates the performance of bent silicon crystals intended to channel hadrons in a fixed-target experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The phenomenon of planar channelling in bent crystals enables extremely high effective bending fields for positively charged hadrons within compact volumes. Particles trapped in the potential well of high-purity, ordered atomic lattices follow the mechanical curvature of the crystal, resulting in macroscopic deflections. Although the bend angle remains constant across different momenta (i.e., the phenomenon is non-dispersive), the channelling acceptance and efficiency still depend on the particle momentum. Crystals with lengths in the range of 5 to 10 cm, bent to angles between 5 and 15 mrad, are under consideration for measurements of the electric and magnetic dipole moments of short-lived charmed baryons, such as the $$\varLambda _c^+$$ Λ c + . Such large deflection angles over short distances cannot be achieved using conventional magnets. The principle of inducing spin precession through bent crystals for magnetic dipole moment measurements was first demonstrated experimentally in the 1990s. Building on this concept, experimental layouts are now being explored for implementation at the LHC. The feasibility of such measurements depends, among other factors, on the availability of crystals that exhibit the required mechanical properties to reach the necessary channelling performance. To address this, a dedicated machine experiment – TWOCRYST – has been installed in the LHC to carry out beam tests in the TeV energy range. The bent crystals for TWOCRYST were fabricated and tested using both X-ray diffraction and high-momentum hadron beams at 180 GeV/c at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) extraction lines. Two crystals based on established technologies were included in this test. In addition, a crystal bent via anodic bonding was tested for the first time with high-energy hadrons to assess its potential for future accelerator applications. This paper presents an analysis of the performance of the three tested crystals and, where possible, outlines key differences in their properties attributed to the respective bending techniques.

Source: The European Physical Journal C

DOI: 10.1140/epjc/s10052-025-15092-y