Investigation of UFO dynamics in the LHC using displaced bunches

Dust particles with typically tens of micrometers radius are believed to be the cause of millisecond beam loss spikes observed at the LHC. These dust particles have become known as unidentified falling objects (UFOs). They are detrimental to machine availability, since they can cause beam dumps and even magnet quenches. The mechanism by which UFOs are released into the beam is unknown, which prevents the prediction of future UFO event rates. Mapping the trajectory of a UFO could lead to an improved understanding of the release mechanism. The position of a UFO can be calculated from bunch-by-bunch loss signals of bunches that are displaced in the transverse plane. These bunch-by-bunch loss signals are obtained from diamond beam loss monitors (dBLMs). This report presents both a code to calculate the UFO position and an analysis of dBLM data from 2023. A Python library was created to process the dBLM data, and a filtering algorithm was used to identify UFO events from the dataset.