BNL, Upton, Long Island, New York
Recently, a strong interest emerged in running RHIC at low energies in the range of 2.5-25 GeV/n total energy of a single beam. Providing collisions in this energy range, which in RHIC case is termed “low-energy” operation, will help to answer one of the key questions in the field of QCD about existence and location of critical point on the QCD phase diagram. Applying electron cooling directly at these low energies in RHIC would result in dramatic luminosity increase, small vertex distribution and long stores. On the other hand, even without direct cooling in RHIC at these energies, significant luminosity gain can be achieved by decreasing the longitudinal emittance of the ion beam before its injection into RHIC from the AGS. This will provide good RF capture efficiency in RHIC. Such an improvement in longitudinal emittance of the ion beam can be provided at by a simple electron cooling system at injection energy of AGS. Simulations of electron cooling both for direct cooling at low-energies in RHIC and for pre-cooling in AGS were performed, and are summarized in this report.
