Manipulation of hadron beams with bent crystals in circular accelerators

Over the past years the understanding and use of coherent interactions of charged particles with ordered crystal lattices has achieved excellent results. Improving collimation of hadron beams in circular accelerators, like the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) of the European Council for Nuclear Research (CERN), it is one of the possible applications. The aim of the UA9 experiment is to demonstrate the feasibility of a two-stage collimation system in the CERN-SPS : the first stage is a bent crystal oriented for an optimal channeling of the incoming halo particles; the second stage is a massive absorber. Two crystals were installed in the LHC last year and a test of crystal assisted collimation at the highest energy will be possible as early as 2015. Finally, the UA9 Collaboration is investigating extraction of particles from a circular accelerator, based on bent crystals.