Status and Recent Performance of the Accelerators that Serve as Gold Injector for RHIC

Abstract

The recent successful commissioning and operation [1] of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) requires the injection of gold ions of specified energy and intensity with longitudinal and transverse emittances small enough to meet the luminosity requirements of the collider. Ion beams with the desired characteristics are provided by a series of three accelerators, the Tandem, Booster and AGS. The current status and recent performance of these accelerators are reviewed in this paper