Beam vacuum interconnects for the LHC cold arcs

Cold arcs of the LHC will consist of twin aperture dipole, quadrupole and corrector magnets in cryostats, operating at 1.9 K. Beam vacuum chambers, along with all connecting elements require flexible "interconnects" between adjacent cryostats to allow for thermal and mechanical offsets foreseen during machine operation and alignment. In addition, the beam vacuum chambers contain perforated beam screens to intercept beam induced heat loads at an intermediate temperature. These must also be connected with low impedance RF bridges in the interconnect zones. The design of the beam vacuum interconnect is described in this paper. Features include a novel RF bridge design to maximise lateral flexibility during cryostat alignment and so-called "nested" bellows to minimise the required length of the assembly.