RHIC Polarized Proton-Proton Operation at 100 GeV in Run 15

The first part of RHIC Run 15 consisted of nine weeks of polarized proton on proton collisions at a beam energy of 100 GeV at two interaction points. In this paper we discuss several of the upgrades to the collider complex that allowed for improved performance this run. The largest effort consisted of commissioning of the electron lenses, one in each ring, which are designed to compensate one of the two beam-beam interactions experienced by the proton bunches. The e-lenses therefore raise the per bunch intensity at which luminosity becomes beam-beam limited. A new lattice was designed to create the phase advances necessary for a functioning e-lens which also has an improved off-momentum dynamic aperture relative to previous runs. In order to take advantage of the new, higher intensity limit without suffering intensity driven emittance deterioration, other features were commissioned including a continuous transverse bunch-by-bunch damper in RHIC and a double harmonic capture scheme in the Booster. Other high intensity protections include improvements to the abort system and the installation of masks to intercept beam lost due to abort kicker pre-fires.
Proceedings of the 6th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2015, Richmond, VA, USA