Effect of accidental beam losses on the ATLAS pixel detector

The ATLAS pixel detector has been designed to sustain a dose of 500 kGy integrated over 10 years of operation. This very substantial radiation hardness should also favor the survival of the detector in case of accidental beam losses. The effect of a very intensive beam releasing a high instantaneous dose in the pixel detector has been measured in a short experiment performed at the CERN Proton Synchrotron. The results confirm that the ATLAS pixel detector can survive to beam losses with minimal or no deterioration of performance.