Abstract
The four electron stripping stages leading to fully stripped gold ions in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) are briefly described. The third stripper, which removes 46 electrons from the ${\mathrm{Au}}^{31+}$ ions leading to heliumlike ${\mathrm{Au}}^{77+}$, offers the greatest challenges in terms of energy loss and induced energy spread. These problems are described in detail as well as recent advances in the design and performance of this stripper. Measurements performed with several carbon and aluminum strippers show general agreement with a semiempirical model but small systematic deviations suggest that some model adjustments may be in order. The best performance is predicted and obtained with a combined carbon-aluminum foil system. Measurements showing the enhanced performance in the alternating gradient synchrotron are described. The stripper that removes the last two electrons has also been improved and the results of relevant calculations and measurements are presented.
Highlights
Electronic charge-exchange processes are of fundamental importance for the design and performance of heavy ion accelerators and, in particular, for an accelerator complex such as the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC)
We describe results of measurements performed in the alternating gradient synchrotron (AGS) showing enhanced performance and we discuss the impact on the new bunch merge scheme [28] and on the overall RHIC performance
Considerable gold beam energy spread following the BTA stripper was observed during early booster-AGS operation and this energy spread was initially attributed to the so-called energy straggling, an unavoidable energy loss fluctuation inherent to the statistical nature of the collisions that occur with the electrons and nuclei in the solid
Summary
Electronic charge-exchange processes are of fundamental importance for the design and performance of heavy ion accelerators and, in particular, for an accelerator complex such as the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). This was the situation before the improvement of the BTA and ATR strippers described later. This causes the following bunch-phase mismatch problems between the booster and the AGS [28,29].
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