Multi-particle weak-strong simulation of RHIC head-on beam-beam compensation

To compensate the large tune spread generated by the beam-beam interactions in the polarized proton (pp) run in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a low energy round Gaussian electron beam or electron lens is proposed to collide head-on with the proton beam. Using a weakstrong beam-beam interaction model, we carry out multiparticle simulations to investigate the effects of head-on beam-beam compensation on the proton beam's lifetime and emittance growth. The simplectic 6-D element-by-element tracking code SixTrack is adopted and modified for this study. The code benchmarking and preliminary simulation results are presented.