Mimicking bipolar sextupole power supplies for low-energy operations at RHIC

RHIC operated at energies below the nominal ion injection energy of E=9.8 GeV/u in 2010. Earlier test runs and magnet measurements indicated that all defocusing sextupole unipolar power supplies should be reversed to provide the proper sign of chromaticity. However, vertical chromaticity at E=3.85 GeV/u with this power supply configuration was still not optimal. This uncertainty inspired a new machine configuration where only half of the defocusing sextupole power supplies were reversed, taking advantage of the flexibility of the RHIC nonlinear chromaticity correction system to mimic bipolar sextupoles. This configuration resulted in a 30 percent luminosity gain and eliminated the need for further polarity changes for later 2010 low energy physics operations. Here we describe the background to this problem, operational experience, and RHIC online model changes to implement this solution.