Bound-free pair production in LHC Pb-Pb operation at 6.37 Z TeV per beam

In the 2015 Pb-Pb collision run of the LHC, the power of the secondary beams emitted from the interaction point by the bound-free pair production (BFPP) process reached new levels while the propensity of the bending magnets to quench increased with the magnetic field. This beam power is about 35 times greater than that contained in the luminosity debris and is focussed on a specific location. As long foreseen, orbit bumps were introduced in the dispersion suppressors around the highest luminosity experiments to mitigate the risk by displacing and spreading out these losses. The BFPP beams were used to induce a controlled quench of a dipole magnet, thus providing the first direct measurement of the steady state quench level and demonstrating the need for new collimators around the ALICE experiment to intercept these secondary beams.