A new luminescence beam profile monitor for intense proton and heavy ion beams

Abstract

A new luminescence beam profile monitor is realized in the polarized hydrogen gas jet target at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) facility. In addition to the spin polarization of the proton beam being routinely measured by the hydrogen gas jet, the luminescence produced by beam-hydrogen excitation leads to a strong Balmer series lines emission. A selected hydrogen Balmer line is spectrally filtered and imaged to produce the transverse RHIC proton beam shape with unprecedented details on the RHIC beam profile. Alternatively, when the passage of the high energy RHIC gold ion beam excited only the residual gas molecules in the beam path, sufficient ion beam induced luminescence is produced and the transverse gold ion beam profile is obtained. The measured transverse beam sizes and the calculated emittances provide an independent confirmation of the RHIC beam characteristics and to verify the emittance conservation along the RHIC accelerator. This optical beam diagnostic technique by making use of the beam induced fluorescence from injected or residual gas offers a truly noninvasive particle beam characterization, and provides a visual observation of proton and heavy ion beams. Combined with a longitudinal bunch measurement system, a 3-dimensional spatial particle beam profile can be reconstructed tomographically.