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

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$/\mathrm{c}{\mathrm{m}}^3$ corresponding to a density, $\ddot{I}=2.5\times 10^{12}/\mathrm{c}{\mathrm{m}}^3$, 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.

11 pages, 14 figures, to be submitted to PRAB