https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2008-00793-8
RHIC polarized proton status and plan*
BNL, Upton, NY 11973, USA
The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) as the first high energy polarized proton collider has been providing collisions at a beam
energy of 100 GeV since 2001. Equipped with two full Siberian snakes
in each ring, polarization is preserved during the acceleration from
injection to 100 GeV with careful control of the betatron tunes and
the vertical orbit distortions. In the latest RHIC polarized proton
run in 2006, a peak luminosity of 
with 60% average polarization at
store was achieved. During the run, RHIC also demonstrated its
capability in providing a combination of polarized proton collisions
with longitudinal polarization and radial polarization were provided
to the STAR experiment and PHENIX experiment with the local spin
rotators installed on either side of the STAR detector and PHENIX
detector. Polarized protons were also first accelerated to 250 GeV at
the end of RHIC 2006 run with a 46% polarization measured at this new
store energy in one of the RHIC accelerators. Currently, the
luminosity in RHIC is limited by the beam-beam effect. The plan is to
triple the luminosity. Plans to achieve polarized proton collision at
250 GeV are also reported.
© EDP Sciences, Springer-Verlag, 2008
