BNL, Upton, Long Island, New York
The two rings in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) require a total of 933 power supplies to supply current to highly inductive superconducting magnets. Failure statistics for the RHIC power supplies will be presented for the last three RHIC runs. The failures of the power supplies will be analyzed. The statistics associated with the power supply failures will be presented. Comparisons of the failure statistics for the last three RHIC runs will be shown. Improvements that have increased power supply availability will be discussed. Further improvements to increase the availability of the power supplies will also be discussed.
BNL, Upton, Long Island, New York
After the last successful RHIC Au-Au run in 2004 (Run-4), RHIC experiments now require significantly enhanced luminosity to study very rare events in heavy ion collisions. RHIC has demonstrated its capability to operate routinely above its design average luminosity per store of 2x1026 cm-2 s-1. In Run-4 we already achieved 2.5 times the design luminosity in RHIC. This luminosity was achieved with only 40% of bunches filled, and with β* = 1 m. However, the goal is to reach 4 times the design luminosity, 8x1026 cm-2 s-1, by reducing the beta* value and increasing the number of bunches to the accelerator maximum of 111. In addition, the average time in store should be increased by a factor of 1.1 to about 60% of calendar time. We present an overview of the changes that increased the instantaneous luminosity and luminosity lifetime, raised the reliability, and improved the operational efficiency of RHIC Au-Au operations during Run-7.
BNL, Upton, Long Island, New York
CERN, Geneva
Tune feedback was first implemented in RHIC in 2002 as a specialist activity. The transition to full operational status was impeded by dynamic range problems, as well as by overall loop instabilities driven by large coupling. The dynamic range problem was solved by the CERN development of the Direct Diode Detection Analog Front End. Continuous measurement of all projections of the betatron Eigenmodes made possible the world's first implementation of coupling feedback during beam acceleration, resolving the problem of overall loop instabilites. Simultaneous tune and coupling feedbacks were utilized as specialist activities for ramp development during the 2006 RHIC run. At the beginning of the 2007 RHIC run there remained two obstacles to making these feedbacks fully operational in RHIC - chromaticity measurement and control, and the presence of strong harmonics of the power line frequency in the betatron spectrum. We report here on progress in tune, coupling, and chromaticity measurement and feedback, and discuss the relevance of our results to the LHC commissioning effort. The results of investigations of power line harmonics in RHIC are presented elsewhere in these proceedings.
BNL, Upton, Long Island, New York
Tech-X, Boulder, Colorado
ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
AES, Princeton, New Jersey
Fermilab, Batavia, Illinois
Jefferson Lab, Newport News, Virginia
BINP SB RAS, Novosibirsk
JINR, Dubna, Moscow Region
The physics interest in a luminosity upgrade of RHIC requires the development of a cooling-frontier facility. Detailed cooling calculations have been made to determine the efficacy of electron cooling of the stored RHIC beams. This has been followed by beam dynamics simulations to establish the feasibility of creating the necessary electron beam. Electron cooling of RHIC at collisions requires electron beam energy up to about 54 MeV at an average current of between 50 to 100 mA and a particularly bright electron beam. The accelerator chosen to generate this electron beam is a superconducting Energy Recovery Linac (ERL) with a superconducting RF gun with a laser-photocathode. An intensive experimental R&D program engages the various elements of the accelerator: Photocathodes of novel design, superconducting RF electron gun of a particularly high current and low emittance, a very high-current ERL cavity and a demonstration ERL using these components.