BNL future plans

In this paper, the prospects for a fixed target physics program at the AGS in the RHIC era are discussed. In 1999, after almost 40 years of independent existence, the Brookhaven Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS) is scheduled to be pressed into service as an injector to the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). Although at first sight this seems like the end of an era, in actuality, it represents a very attractive new opportunity. For the AGS is actually needed by RHIC for only a few hours per day. The balance of the time it is available for extracted proton beam work at a very small incremental cost. This represents the reverse of the current situation in which the nuclear physics program gets access to the AGS (for fixed target heavy ion experiments) at incremental cost, while the base cost of maintaining the accelerator is borne by the high energy physics program. Retaining the AGS for particle physics work would broaden the US HEP program considerably, allowing continued exploitation of the world's most intense source of medium energy protons. As will be discussed below, there are some very compelling experiments that can best be done at the AGS. These include a determination of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix element Vtd, probes of Standard Model (SM) and non-SM CP violation, and low energy manifestations of supersymmetry (SUSY). (J.P.N.)