The electron ion collider (EIC) Hadron Storage Ring (HSR) will reuse most of the existing superconducting magnets (SC) from the RHIC storage ring. However, for some sectors of the machine, a modification of the accelerators optics will be required. To do this, the existing RHIC magnet electrical circuits will have to be modified and some superconducting current leads will need to be used at higher current. A work has been conducted to understand the current leads design parameters and their operational flexibility around these parameters, in particular for use at higher current. This paper details the study of the existing RHIC current leads, their potential for use at higher current and where required the modifications to extend their operational range.

Cooling of beams of gold ions using electron bunches accelerated with radio-frequency systems was recently experimentally demonstrated in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Such an approach is new and opens the possibility of using this technique at higher energies than possible with electrostatic acceleration of electron beams. The challenges of this approach include generation of electron beams suitable for cooling, delivery of electron bunches of the required quality to the cooling sections without degradation of beam angular divergence and energy spread, achieving the required small angles between electron and ion trajectories in the cooling sections, precise velocity matching between the two beams, high-current operation of the electron accelerator, as well as several physics effects related to bunched-beam cooling. Here we report on the first demonstration of cooling hadron beams using this new approach.

Any upgrade of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider ( RHIC) to an electron-ion collider (EIC) will involve large scale upgrades to the existing cryogenic infrastructure. The challenges to such a project at Brookhaven are unique because of the existing central cryogenic plant. The central plant is oversized for current RHIC operations and can handle the EIC's heat loads comfortably. However, a lot of equipment will require 2 K cooling for which extra local cryogenic systems are needed. Any new systems will have to be designed to work in tandem with the existing RHIC cryogenic system. This places further constraints on the design of the system, with respect to the cryodistribution system. This study discusses the various baseline configurations for each local cryogenic system for the EIC upgrade.

To improve RHIC luminosity for heavy ion beam energies below 10 GeV/nucleon, the Low Energy RHIC electron Cooler (LEReC) is currently under commissioning at BNL. The linac of LEReC is designed to deliver a 1.6-2.6 MeV electron beam, with rms dp/p less than 5 x 10(-4). A 704 MHz superconducting radio frequency booster cavity in this linac provides up to 2.2 MeV accelerating voltage. With such a low energy and very demanding energy spread requirement, control of higher order modes (HOMs) in the cavities becomes critical and needs to be carefully evaluated to ensure minimum impact on the beam. In this paper, we report the multiphysics design of the HOM damper for this cavity to meet the energy spread requirement, as well as experimental results of the cavity with and without the HOM damper.

A 112 MHz SRF electron photoinjector (gun) was developed at Brookhaven National Laboratory to produce high-brightness and high-bunch-charge bunches for the coherent electron cooling proof-of-principle experiment. The gun is designed to deliver electrons with a kinetic energy of up to 2 MeV. Electrons are generated by illuminating a high quantum efficiency (QE) K2CsSb photoemission layer with a green laser operating at a wavelength of 532 nm. The gun was able to generating 3 nC bunches at 1.7 MeV. The design goals, fabrication, performance and operational experience are reported here.

To improve RHIC luminosity for heavy ion beam energies below 10 GeV/nucleon, the Low Energy RHIC electron Cooler (LEReC) is currently under commissioning at BNL. The Linac of LEReC is designed to deliver a 1.6 MeV to 2.6 MeV electron beam, with rms dp/p less than 5e-4. A 704 MHz superconducting radio frequency (SRF) booster cavity in this Linac provides up to 2.2 MeV accelerating voltage. With such a low energy and very demanding energy spread requirement, control of Higher Order Modes (HOMs) in the cavities becomes critical and needs to be carefully evaluated to ensure minimum impact on the beam. In this paper, we report the multiphysics design of the HOM damper for this cavity to meet the energy spread requirement, as well as experimental results of the cavity with and without the HOM damper.

The ERL-Ring eRHIC design incorporates a new high current (50 mA), multi-pass (6 passes) ERL, generating 5-18 GeV electron beams to collide with the ion beams of the existing RHIC. One critical challenge for eRHIC is to damp HOMs. The average HOM power is up to 8 kW per cavity, potentially much more if the electron beam spectrum overlaps with cavity HOM spectrum. We present a novel HOM damping scheme, employing ridge waveguides, which is able to well damp both longitudinal and transversal modes. This paper will describe the design of the HOM damping scheme, including RF design, HOM damping results, progress of prototyping.

The proposed electron ion collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory will consist of using one existing hadron ring and developing a new electron accelerator. This paper presents the cryogenic loads for the hadron ring’s superconducting magnets as well as related upgrades to handle the additional loads. The cryogenic loads for the superconducting RF injector/accelerator and storage ring for the electron beam are summarized. The proposed cryogenic plant, and the configuration and flow distribution of the related cryogenic systems are also presented.

Linac Coherent Light Source II (LCLS-II), a 4 GeV continuous-wave (CW) superconducting electron linear accelerator, is to be constructed in the existing two mile Linac facility at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. The first light from the new facility is scheduled to be in 2020. The LCLS-II Linac consists of thirty-five 1.3 GHz and two 3.9 GHz superconducting cryomodules. The Linac cryomodules require cryogenic cooling for the superconducting niobium cavities at 2.0 K, low temperature thermal intercept at 5.5-7.5 K, and a thermal shield at 35-55 K. The equivalent 4.5 K refrigeration capacity needed for the Linac operations range from a minimum of 11 kW to a maximum of 24 kW. Two cryogenic plants with 18 kW of equivalent 4.5 K refrigeration capacity will be used for supporting the Linac cryogenic cooling requirements. The cryogenic plants are based on the Jefferson Lab's CHL-II cryogenic plant design which uses the "Floating Pressure" design to support a wide variation in the cooling load. In this paper, the cryogenic process for the integrated LCLS-II cryogenic system and the process simulation for a 4.5 K cryoplant in combination with a 2 K cold compressor box, and the Linac cryomodules are described.

Two electron lenses (e-lenses) have been in operation during the 2015 RHIC physics run as part of a head-on beam-beam compensation scheme. While the RHIC lattice was chosen to reduce the beam-beam-induced resonance-driving terms, the electron lenses reduced the beam-beam-induced tune spread. This has been demonstrated for the first time. The beam-beam compensation scheme allows for higher beam-beam parameters and therefore higher intensities and luminosity. In this paper, we detail the design considerations and verification of the electron beam parameters of the RHIC e-lenses. Longitudinal and transverse alignments with ion beams and the transverse beam transfer function measurement with head-on electron-proton beam are presented.

An ampere class 20 MeV superconducting Energy Recovery Linac (ERL) is presently under commissioning at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) for testing of concepts relevant for high-energy coherent electron cooling and electron-ion colliders [1]. The injector subsystems tests and installation were finished in fall 2013. The injector includes: SRF photoelectron gun with 1 MW amplifier, 10W green drive-laser system, multialkaline cathode deposition system, cathode transport system, beam instrumentation and control. First beam test conducted in June 2014 only dark current observed during first beam test [2]. The first photo current from ERL SRF gun has been observed in fall 2014 after second attempt [3]. The ERL returning loop components installed. New cathode with Ta tip conditioned. QE 4% observed. Bunch charge 0.55 nC achieved with new cathode. After ERL commissioning in BLDG 912 the ERL will be relocated to RHIC IP2 to be used for LEReC.

The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) operation as the polarized proton collider presents unique challenges since both luminosity(L) and spin polarization(P) are important. With longitudinally polarized beams at the experiments, the figure of merit is LP{sup 4}. A lot of upgrades and modifications have been made since last polarized proton operation. A 9 MHz rf system is installed to improve longitudinal match at injection and to increase luminosity. The beam dump was upgraded to increase bunch intensity. A vertical survey of RHIC was performed before the run to get better magnet alignment. The orbit control is also improved this year. Additional efforts are put in to improve source polarization and AGS polarization transfer efficiency. To preserve polarization on the ramp, a new working point is chosen such that the vertical tune is near a third order resonance. The overview of the changes and the operation results are presented in this paper. Siberian snakes are essential tools to preserve polarization when accelerating polarized beams to higher energy. At the same time, the higher order resonances still can cause polarization loss. As seen in RHIC, the betatron tune has to be carefully set and maintained on the ramp and during the store to avoid polarization loss. In addition, the orbit control is also critical to preserve polarization. The higher polarization during this run comes from several improvements over last run. First we have a much better orbit on the ramp. The orbit feedback brings down the vertical rms orbit error to 0.1mm, much better than the 0.5mm last run. With correct BPM offset and vertical realignment, this rms orbit error is indeed small. Second, the jump quads in the AGS improved input polarization for RHIC. Third, the vertical tune was pushed further away from 7/10 snake resonance. The tune feedback maintained the tune at the desired value through the ramp. To calibrate the analyzing power of RHIC polarimeters at any energy above injection, the polarized hydrogen jet target runs for every fill with both beams. Based on the known analyzing power, there is very little polarization loss between injection and 100 GeV. An alternative way is to measure the asymmetry at 100 GeV followed by ramping up to 250 GeV and back down to 100 GeV and then to measure the asymmetry again at 100 GeV. If the asymmetry after the down ramp is similar to the measurement before the up ramp, polarization was also preserved during the ramp to 250 GeV. The analyzing power at storage energy can then be extracted from the asymmetries measured at 100 GeV and 250 GeV. The tune and orbit feedbacks are essential for the down ramp to be possible. The polarized proton operation is still going on. We will push bunch intensity higher until reaching the beam-beam limit. The even higher intensity will have to wait for the electron lenses to compensate the beam-beam effect. To understand the details of spin dynamics in RHIC with two snakes, spin simulation with the real magnet fields have been developed recently. The study will provide guidance for possible polarization loss schemes. Further polarization gain will requires a polarized source upgrade; more careful setup jump quads in the AGS to get full benefit; and control emittance in the whole accelerator chain.

High-bunch-charge photoemission electron-sources operating in a continuous wave (CW) mode are required for many advanced applications of particle accelerators, such as electron coolers for hadron beams, electron-ion colliders, and free-electron lasers. Superconducting RF (SRF) has several advantages over other electron-gun technologies in CW mode as it offers higher acceleration rate and potentially can generate higher bunch charges and average beam currents. A 112 MHz SRF electron photoinjector (gun) was developed at Brookhaven National Laboratory to produce high-brightness and high-bunch-charge bunches for the coherent electron cooling proof-of-principle experiment. The gun utilizes a quarter-wave resonator geometry for assuring beam dynamics and uses high quantum efficiency multi-alkali photocathodes for generating electrons.