RHIC Instrumentation

The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) consists of two 3.8 km circumference rings utilizing 396 superconducting dipoles and 492 superconducting quadrupoles. Each ring will accelerate approximately 60 bunches of 10 protons to 250 GeV, or 10 fully stripped gold ions to 100 GeV/nucleon. Commissioning is scheduled for early 1999 with detectors for some of the 6 intersection regions scheduled for initial operation later in the year. The injection line instrumentation includes: 52 beam position monitor (BPM) channels, 56 beam loss monitor (BLM) channels, 5 fast integrating current transformers and 12 video beam profile monitors. The collider ring instrumentation includes: 667 BPM channels, 400 BLM channels, wall current monitors, DC current transformers, ionization profile monitors (IPMs), transverse feedback systems, and resonant Schottky monitors. The use of superconducting magnets affected the beam instrumentation design. The BPM electrodes must function in a cryogenic environment and the BLM system must prevent magnet quenches from either fast or slow losses with widely different rates. RHIC is the first superconducting accelerator to cross transition, requiring close monitoring of beam parameters at this time. High space-charge due to the fully stripped gold ions required the IPM to collect magnetically guided electrons rather than the conventional ions. Since polarized beams will also be accelerated in RHIC, additional constraints were put on the instrumentation. The orbit must be well controlled to minimize depolarizing resonance strengths. Also, the position monitors must accommodate large orbit displacements within the Siberian snakes and spin rotators. The design of the instrumentation will be presented along with results obtained during bench tests, the injection line commissioning, and the first sextant test.