BNL, Upton, Long Island, New York, USA
Precedent to electron cooling commissioning and collisions of Gold at various energies at RHIC in 2018, the STAR experiment desired an exploration of the chiral magnetic effect in the quark gluon plasma (QGP) with an isobar run, utilizing Ruthenium and Zirconium. Colliding Zr-96 with Zr-96 and Ru-96 with Ru-96 create the same QGP but in a different magnetic field due to the different charges of the Zr (Z=40) and Ru (Z=44) ions. Since the charge difference is only 10%, the experimental program requires exacting store conditions for both ions. These systematic error concerns presented new challenges for the Collider, including frequent reconfiguration of the Collider for the different ion species, and maintaining level amounts of instantaneous and integrated luminosity between two species. Moreover, making beams of Zr-96 and Ru-96 is challenging since the natural abundances of these isotopes are low. Creating viable enriched source material for Zr-96 required assistance processing from RIKEN, while Ru-96 was provided by a new enrichment facility under commissioning at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
BNL, Upton, Long Island, New York, USA
The QCD (Quantum Chromodynamics) phase diagram has many uncharted territories, particularly the nature of the transformation from Quark-Gluon plasma (QGP) to the state of Hadronic gas. The Beam Energy Scan I (BES-I) at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) was completed but measurements had large statistical errors. To improve the statistical error and expand the search for first-order phase transition and location of the critical point, Beam Energy Scan II will commence in 2019 with a goal of improving the luminosity by a factor of 3-4. The beam lifetime at low energies was and will be limited by some physical effects of which the most significant are intrabeam scattering, space charge, beam-beam, persistent current effects. This article will review these potential limiting factors and introduce the countermeasures which will be in place to improve BES-II luminosity.