Spin-flipping a stored polarized proton beam with an rf dipole

Abstract

Frequent polarization reversals, or spin-flips, of a stored polarized high-energy beam may greatly reduce systematic errors of spin asymmetry measurements in a scattering asymmetry experiment. We studied the spin-flipping of a 120 MeV horizontally-polarized proton beam stored in the IUCF Cooler Ring by ramping an rf-dipole magnet’s frequency through an rf-induced depolarizing resonance in the presence of a nearly-full Siberian snake. After optimizing the frequency ramp parameters, we used multiple spin-flips to measure a spin-flip efficiency of 86.5±0.5%. The spin-flip efficiency was apparently limited by the rf-dipole’s field strength. This result indicates that an efficient spin-flipping a stored polarized beam should be possible in high energy rings such as RHIC and HERA where Siberian snakes are certainly needed and only dipole rf-flipper-magnets are practical.