BNL, Upton, Long Island, New York, USA
The optimal performance of the two electron lenses that are being implemented for high intensity polarized proton operation of RHIC requires excellent collinearity of the ~0.3 mm RMS wide electron beams with the proton bunch trajectories over the ~2m interaction lengths. The main beam overlap diagnostic tool will make use of electrons backscattered in close encounters with the relativistic protons. These electrons will spiral along the electron guiding magnetic field and will be detected in a plastic scintillator located close to the electron gun. A fraction of these electrons will have energies high enough to emerge from the vacuum chamber through a thin window thus simplifying the design and operation of the detector. The intensity of the detected electrons provides a measure of the overlap between the e- and the opposing proton beams. Joint electron arrival time and energy discrimination may be used additionally to gain some longitudinal position information with a single detector per lens.
