THA2WD02
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 very 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 IBS, space charge and beam-beam forces also contribute. An electron cooling technique is effective in counteracting luminosity degradation due to the IBS. To improve luminosities for the low energies of operation, the low energy RHIC electron cooler (LEReC) was constructed and is presently under commissioning. Required electron beam and its acceleration is provided by the photoemission electron gun followed by an RF accelerator. As a first step, one has to commission high-brightness high-current electron accelerator and achieve beam parameters suitable for cooling. This will be followed by commissioning of bunched electron beam cooling, and finally by producing high-brightness hadron beams via the cooling process. Here, we describe design aspects and challenges of such an approach, as well as summarize first commissioning results.
on behalf of the LEReC team.
