THE RHIC BEAM ABORT SYSTEM - OPERATION DURING THE RHIC 2001 GOLD RUN

The RHC Beam Abort system removes the circulating beams from the two RHIC superconducting rings both under normal conditions at the end of a beam ''Store'' and in the event of unusual conditions, which cause the beam ''permit'' to be dropped. The design objective in both cases is to quickly remove the beam without causing any superconducting magnet to quench. In addition it is extremely desirable to avoid spraying any beam into the ex.tetients. The Abort system had been commissioned during the previous (FY2000) RHIC run with gold ions at 70 GeV/nuc and with 5e8 ions in each of 55 bunches. The run reported on here saw an intensity increase to le9 ions per bunch and more importantly an energy increase at Store up to the design - 100 GeV/nuc. The second change requires that the Abort kicker magnets operate at higher voltage and also leaves the ring magnets much less margin against beam induced quenches relative to the previous run. Operational experience will be reviewed