Detectors for low energy electron cooling in RHIC

Low-energy operation of RHIC is of particular interest to study the location of a possible critical point in the QCD phase diagram. The performance of RHIC at energies equal to or lower than 10 GV/nucleon is limited by nonlinearities, Intra-BeamScattering (IBS) processes and space-charge effects. To successfully address the luminosity and ion store lifetime limitations imposed by IBS, the method of electron cooling has been envisaged. During electron cooling processes electrons are injected along with the ion beam at the nominal ion bunch velocities. The velocity spread of the ion beam is reduced in all planes through Coulomb interactions between the cold electron beam and the ion beam. The electron cooling system proposed for RHIC will be the first of its kind to use bunched beams for the delivery of the electron bunches, and will therefore be accompanied by the necessary challenges. The designed electron cooler will be located in IP2. The electron bunches will be accelerated by a linac before being injected along side the ion beams. Thirty consecutive electron bunches will be injected to overlap with a single ion bunch. They will first cool the yellow beam before being extracted, turned by 180-degrees, and reinjected into the blue beam for cooling. As such, both the yellow and blue beams will be cooled by the same ion bunches. This will pose considerable challenges to ensure proper electron beam quality to cool the second ion beam. Furthermore, no ondulator will be used in the electron cooler so radiative recombination between the ions and the electrons will occur.