1 Jan 2014
RHIC is set to begin the 14th year of operation on 3 February 2014 with the cool down of the RHIC magnets to 4.5 degrees Kelvin (451 degrees below zero Fahrenheit). This year we will concentrate our effort on full energy (100 GeV/n x 100 GeV/n) gold-gold collisions to further study the "perfect liquid" formed in these collisions. Both the STAR and PHENIX experiments are again operational for this run. The plan, budget permitting, is to run through June 2014 before taking a break for maintenance and upgrades.
NASA Space Radiation Laboratory (NSRL) experiments will begin later this year. These experiments make use of beams from the Booster Accelerator to study radiation effects for the NASA space program. Beams injected into the Booster come primarily from the new Electron Beam Ion Source (EBIS). Experiments sponsored by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) aimed at studying ways to improve electronics survival in space will also run using beams from NSRL.
The Brookhaven Linac Isotope Producer (BLIP) began FY2014 operations on 17 December with plans to run through July. The BLIP facility mission is to supply radioisotopes that are not commercially available to the medical community and industry as well as development of new medical isotopes. The BLIP facility uses proton beams from one of the injector accelerators for the Booster, the 200 MeV LINAC.
Scheduling
Physicist web page - FY2014
Status Updates (RHIC Broadcast)
Phil Pile (pile@bnl.gov)