FIRST RESULTS OF THE LHC COLLISION RATE MONITORS

The aim of CERN large hadron collider (LHC) is to collide protonsand heavy ions with centre of mass energiesup to 14zTeV. In order to monitor and optimize the collision rates special detectors have been developed and installed around the four luminous interaction regions. Due to the differentconditionsat the high luminosity experiments (ATLAS and CMS) and the low luminosity experiments (ALICE and LHC-b) two very different types of monitors are used: a fast ionisation chamber (BRAN-A) and a Cd-Te solid state detector (BRAN-B) respectively. Moreover,in orderto cope with the low collision rates foreseen for the initial run, a third type of monitor, based on a simple scintillating pad, was installed in parallel with the BRAN-A (BRAN-P). This contribution illustrates the results obtained during the 2010 run with an outlook for 2011 and beyond.