DOE OSTI2011
In this paper, we describe a future electron-ion collider (EIC), based on the existing Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) hadron facility, with two intersecting superconducting rings, each 3.8 km in circumference. The replacement cost of the RHIC facility is about two billion US dollars, and the eRHIC will fully take advantage and utilize this investment. We plan adding a polarized 5-30 GeV electron beam to collide with variety of species in the existing RHIC accelerator complex, from polarized protons with a top energy of 325 GeV, to heavy fully-striped ions with energies up to 130 GeV/u. Brookhaven's innovative design, is based on one of the RHIC's hadron rings and a multi-pass energy-recovery linac (ERL). Using the ERL as the electron accelerator assures high luminosity in the 10{sup 33}-10{sup 34} cm{sup -2} sec{sup -1} range, and for the natural staging of eRHIC, with the ERL located inside the RHIC tunnel. The eRHIC will provide electron-hadron collisions in up to three interaction regions. We detail the eRHIC's performance in Section 2. Since first paper on eRHIC paper in 2000, its design underwent several iterations. Initially, the main eRHIC option (the so-called ring-ring, RR, design) was based on an electron ring, with the linac-ring (LR) option as a backup. In 2004, we published the detailed 'eRHIC 0th Order Design Report' including a cost-estimate for the RR design. After detailed studies, we found that an LR eRHIC has about a 10-fold higher luminosity than the RR. Since 2007, the LR, with its natural staging strategy and full transparency for polarized electrons, became the main choice for eRHIC. In 2009, we completed technical studies of the design and dynamics for MeRHIC with 3-pass 4 GeV ERL. We learned much from this evaluation, completed a bottom-up cost estimate for this $350M machine, but then shelved the design. In the same year, we turned again to considering the cost-effective, all-in-tunnel six-pass ERL for our design of the high-luminosity eRHIC. In it, electrons from the polarized pre-injector will be accelerated to their top energy by passing six times through two SRF linacs. After colliding with the hadron beam in up to three detectors, the e-beam will be decelerated by the same linacs and dumped. The six-pass magnetic system with small-gap magnets will be installed from the start. We will stage the electron energy from 5 GeV to 30 GeV stepwise by increasing the lengths of the SRF linacs. We discuss details of eRHIC's layout in Section 3. We considered several IR designs for eRHIC. The latest one, with a 10 mrad crossing angle and {beta}* = 5 cm, takes advantage of newly commissioned Nb{sub 3}Sn quadrupoles. Section 4 details the eRHIC lattice and the IR layout. The current eRHIC design focuses on electron-hadron collisions. If justified by the EIC physics, we will add a 30 GeV polarized positron ring with full energy injection from eRHIC ERL. This addition to the eRHIC facility provide for positron-hadron collisions, but at a significantly lower luminosity than those attainable in the electron-hadron mode. As a novel high-luminosity EIC, eRHIC faces many technical challenges, such as generating 50 mA of polarized electron current. eRHIC also will employ coherent electron cooling (CeC) for the hadron beams. Staff at BNL, JLab, and MIT is pursuing vigorously an R&D program for resolving addressing these obstacles. In collaboration with Jlab, BNL plans experimentally to demonstrate CeC at the RHIC. We discuss the structure and the status of the eRHIC R&D in Section 5.
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