BNL, Upton, Long Island, New York, USA
The Electron Lens upgrade project at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) has reached an operational status, whereby intense, pulsed or DC beams of electrons are generated in order to interact with the RHIC polarized proton beams in both the Blue and Yellow Rings at the 10 o'clock Interaction Region. Interactions between the electrons and protons are utilized to counteract the beam-beam effect that arises from the desired polarized proton collisions, which result in a higher RHIC luminosity. A complex system for operating the e-lens has been developed, including superconducting and non-superconducting magnet controls, instrumentation systems, a COTS-based Machine Protection System, custom Blue and Yellow e-lens timing systems for synchronizing the electron beam with the RHIC timing system, beam alignment software tools for maximizing electron-proton collisions, as well as complex user interfaces to support routine operation of the system. e-lens software and hardware design will be presented, as well as recent updates to the system that were required in order to meet changing system requirements in preparation for the first operational run of the system.
BNL, Upton, Long Island, New York, USA
The 3.8 km circumference Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at BNL has been in operation since 2000. An electron-ion collider (eRHIC), which is in the design phase, plans to use one of the existing ion rings and new electron rings constructed in the existing tunnel to provide collisions of up to 21.2 GeV electrons with up to 100 GeV gold ions, 250 GeV polarized protons, as well as other species. Many new real-time systems will be required to satisfy the needs of eRHIC, including over 2000 beam position monitors, 1000 beam loss monitors, 18 current monitors, feedback systems, controls for about 10,000 power supplies, machine protection system, new beam timing systems, and more. The selected architecture must be flexible, expandable, cost-effective, reliable, and easy to maintain. Interface with existing and new accelerator timing systems is required, and compatibility with existing infrastructure and equipment must be maintained. Embedded modules based on the Xilinx Zynq gate array, with direct Ethernet connection and on-board Linux, housed in multi-slot chassis (VME, VPX, TCA, etc.) is under consideration. Preliminary design concepts for the architecture will be presented.
