The RHIC wall current monitor system

Abstract

The RHIC Wall Current Monitor System will provide data which closely represents the longitudinal profile of bunches in the RHIC ring. This data will be available throughout the machine cycle, from injection through acceleration, transition, transfer to storage RF, and storage. Information which can be derived from this data includes fill pattern, synchrotron motion, longitudinal bunch profile, beam spectrum, and luminosity. The system is similar to that which has operated successfully at the Fermilab Tevatron and Main Ring. The detectors are broadband resistive wall current monitors. Their signals are sampled and digitized by a high-speed oscilloscope. A Macintosh computer running LabVIEW controls the scope via GPIB, controls system calibration, processes the data, and communicates to the VME-based RHIC Control System via a PCI/MXI/VME interface.