BNL, Upton, Long Island, New York, USA
RHIC operated at energies below the nominal ion injection energy of E=9.8 GeV/u in 2010. Earlier test runs and magnet measurements indicated that all defocusing sextupole unipolar power supplies should be reversed to provide the proper sign of chromaticity. However, vertical chromaticity at E=3.85 GeV/u with this power supply configuration was still not optimal. This uncertainty inspired a new machine configuration where only half of the defocusing sextupole power supplies were reversed, taking advantage of the flexibility of the RHIC nonlinear chromaticity correction system to mimic bipolar sextupoles. This configuration resulted in a 30 percent luminosity gain and eliminated the need for further polarity changes for later 2010 low energy physics operations. Here we describe the background to this problem, operational experience, and RHIC online model changes to implement this solution.
BNL, Upton, Long Island, New York, USA
The low-energy physics program at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), motivated by a search for the QCD phase transition critical point, requires operation at low energies. At these energies, large nonlinear magnetic field errors and large beam sizes produce low beam lifetimes. A variety of beam dynamics effects such as Intrabeam Scattering (IBS), space charge and beam-beam forces also contribute. All these effects are important to understand beam lifetime limitations in RHIC at low energies. During the low-energy RHIC physics run in May-June 2010 at beam γ=6.1 and γ=4.1, gold beam lifetimes were measured for various values of space-charge tune shifts, transverse acceptance limitation by collimators, synchrotron tunes and RF voltage. This paper summarizes our observations and initial findings.
BNL, Upton, Long Island, New York, USA
As part of the search for a phase transition or critical point on the QCD phase diagram, an energy scan including 5 different energy settings was performed during the 2010 RHIC heavy ion run. While the top beam energy for heavy ions is at 100 GeV/n and the lowest achieved energy setpoint was significantly below RHICs injection energy of approximately 10 GeV/n, we also provided beams for data taking in a medium energy range above injection energy and below top beam energy. This paper reviews RHIC experience and challenges for RHIC medium energy operations that produced full experimental data sets at beam energies of 31.2 GeV/n and 19.5 GeV/n.
BNL, Upton, Long Island, New York, USA
JLAB, Newport News, Virginia, USA
Continued beam-based alignment (BBA) efforts have provided significant benefit to both heavy ion and polarized proton operations at RHIC. Recent studies demonstrated previously unknown systematic beam position monitor (BPM) offset errors and produced accurate measurements of individual BPM offsets in the experiment interaction regions. Here we describe the algorithm used to collect and analyze data during the 2010 and early 2011 RHIC runs and the results of these measurements.
University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, USA
JLAB, Newport News, Virginia, USA
BNL, Upton, Long Island, New York, USA
JLAB, Newport News, Virginia, USA
All physics stores at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider are now established using simultaneous orbit, tune, coupling, and energy feedback during beam injection, acceleration to full beam energies, during the “beta-squeeze” for establishing small beam sizes at the interaction points, and during removal of separation bumps to establish collisions. In this report we describe the major changes made to enable these achievements. The proof-of-principle for additional chromaticity feedback will also be presented.
JLAB, Newport News, Virginia, USA
Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois, USA
Cockcroft Institute, Warrington, Cheshire, United Kingdom
GOO Zaryad, Novosibirsk, Russia
ANL, Argonne, USA
ODU, Norfolk, Virginia, USA
SLAC, Menlo Park, California, USA
An electron-ion collider (MEIC) is envisioned as the primary future of the JLab nuclear science program beyond the 12 GeV upgraded CEBAF. The present MEIC design selects a ring-ring collider option and covers a CM energy range up to 51 GeV for both polarized light ions and un-polarized heavy ions, while higher CM energies could be reached by a future upgrade. The MEIC stored colliding ion beams, which will be generated, accumulated and accelerated in a green field ion complex, are designed to match the stored electron beam injected at full energy from the CEBAF in terms of emittance, bunch length, charge and repetition frequency. This design strategy ensures a high luminosity above 1034 s−1cm-2. A unique figure-8 shape collider ring is adopted for advantages of preserving ion polarization during acceleration and accommodation of a polarized deuteron beam for collisions. Our recent effort has been focused on completing this conceptual design as well as design optimization of major components. Significant progress has also been made in accelerator R&D including chromatic correction and dynamical aperture, beam-beam, high energy electron cooling and polarization tracking.
ESS, Lund, Sweden
IPN, Orsay, France
BNL, Upton, Long Island, New York, USA
CEA/DSM/IRFU, France
Fundación TEKNIKER, Eibar (Gipuzkoa), Spain
INFN/LNS, Catania, Italy
ISA, Aarhus, Denmark
SPRI, Bilbao, Spain
Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
JLAB, Newport News, Virginia, USA