27 Feb 2012
RHIC began the 12th year of operation on 17 January 2012. Cool down of the RHIC magnets to 4.5 degrees Kelvin (451 degrees below zero Fahrenheit) was complete by 20 January with beam circulating at injection energy in both rings by 28 January. The RHIC machines will be operational until at least the end of May. This year we began with 100 GeV x 100 GeV polarized proton collisions to continue exploration of the quark-gluon origin of proton spin and to provide comparison date for full energy gold-gold collisions. This will be followed with a full energy (250 x 250 GeV) polarized proton run. The run will continue with beams combinations that are new to RHIC, either 100 GeV/n copper on 100 GeV/n gold or full energy uranium on uranium, The aim of the heavy ion part of the run is to further study the "perfect liquid" formed in these collisions. Both the STAR and PHENIX experiments are operational for this run. A possible new experiment, AnDY, may be operational for a part of this run.
The next round of NSRL experiments (NSRL-12A) will begin began on 5 March, concurrent with RHIC operations and will continue through June. These experiments make use of the NASA Space Radiation Laboratory (NSRL) that uses beams from the Booster Accelerator to study radiation effects for the NASA space program.
Scheduling Physicist web page - FY2012
Status Updates (RHIC Broadcast)
Phil Pile (pile@bnl.gov)