• M. Bai, L. Ahrens, I. G. Alekseev, J. G. Alessi, J. Beebe-Wang, M. Blaskiewicz, A. Bravar, J. M. Brennan, K. A. Brown, D. Bruno, G. Bunce, J. J. Butler, P. Cameron, R. Connolly, T. D'Ottavio, J. DeLong, K. A. Drees, W. Fischer, G. Ganetis, C. J. Gardner, J. W. Glenn, T. Hayes, H.-C. Hseuh, H. Huang, P. F. Ingrassia, J. S. Laster, R. C. Lee, A. U. Luccio, Y. Luo, W. W. MacKay, Y. Makdisi, G. J. Marr, A. Marusic, G. T. McIntyre, R. J. Michnoff, C. Montag, J. Morris, P. Oddo, B. Oerter, J. Piacentino, F. C. Pilat, V. Ptitsyn, T. Roser, T. Satogata, K. Smith, S. Tepikian, D. Trbojevic, N. Tsoupas, J. E. Tuozzolo, M. Wilinski, A. Zaltsman, A. Zelenski, K. Zeno, S. Y. Zhang
  BNL, Upton, Long Island, New York
• D. Svirida
  ITEP, Moscow

The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider~(RHIC) as the first high energy polarized proton collider was designed to provide polarized proton collisions at a maximum beam energy of 250GeV. It has been providing collisions at a beam energy of 100GeV since 2001. Equipped with two full Siberian snakes in each ring, polarization is preserved during the acceleration from injection to 100GeV with careful control of the betatron tunes and the vertical orbit distortions. However, the intrinsic spin resonances beyond 100GeV are about a factor of two stronger than those below 100GeV making it important to examine the impact of these strong intrinsic spin resonances on polarization survival and the tolerance for vertical orbit distortions. Polarized protons were accelerated to the record energy of 250GeV in RHIC with a polarization of 45\% measured at top energy in 2006. The polarization measurement as a function of beam energy also shows some polarization loss around 136GeV, the first strong intrinsic resonance above 100GeV. This paper presents the results and discusses the sensitivity of the polarization survival to orbit distortions.

• H. Huang, L. Ahrens, M. Bai, K. A. Brown, C. J. Gardner, J. W. Glenn, F. Lin, A. U. Luccio, W. W. MacKay, T. Roser, S. Tepikian, N. Tsoupas, K. Yip, K. Zeno
  BNL, Upton, Long Island, New York

Dual partial snake scheme has provided polarized proton beams with 1.5*10¹¹ intensity and 65% polarization for RHIC spin program. To overcome the residual polarization loss due to horizontal resonances in the AGS, a new string of quadrupoles have been added. The horizontal tune can now be set in the spin tune gap generated by the two partial snakes, such that horizontal resonances are avoided. This paper presents the accelerator setup and preliminary results.

• C. J. Gardner, L. Ahrens, J. G. Alessi, J. Benjamin, M. Blaskiewicz, J. M. Brennan, K. A. Brown, C. Carlson, W. Fischer, J. W. Glenn, M. Harvey, T. Hayes, H. Huang, G. J. Marr, J. Morris, F. C. Pilat, T. Roser, F. Severino, K. Smith, D. Steski, P. Thieberger, N. Tsoupas, A. Zaltsman, K. Zeno
  BNL, Upton, Long Island, New York

Gold ions for the 2007 run of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) are accelerated in the Tandem, Booster and AGS prior to injection into RHIC. The setup and performance of this chain of accelerators will be reviewed with a focus on improvements in the quality of beam delivered to RHIC. In particular, more uniform stripping foils between Booster and AGS, and a new bunch merging scheme in AGS promise to provide beam bunches with reduced longitudinal emittance for RHIC.