However, this also means that if there is a sudden burst of beam, their detectors will trip off and could even be damaged. Although spikes can occur anywhere in the spill, they often happen at the times when slow spill starts. These are periods of transition when some devices are changing rapidly. It is more likely that a device will cause unwanted spikes in the beam if its output has not yet stabilized. For example, if the quadrupoles which drive the beam to resonance turn on too quickly, they might cause spikes when slow spill begins.
Holes can also occur anywhere in the spill.
One way to get unwanted holes is to put less than 12 Booster batches into the Tevatron. The number of injected batches is a settable parameter on the Time Line Generator page. However, having a missing batch is not always intentional. Sometimes Booster has trouble consistently injecting all twelve batches into Main Ring. Missing batches are most easily detected using the Booster Batch display.