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Two electron lenses (e-lenses) have been in operation during the 2015 RHIC physics run as part of a head-on beam-beam compensation scheme. While the RHIC lattice was chosen to reduce the beam-beaminduced resonance-driving terms, the electron lenses reduced the beam-beam-induced tune spread. This has been demonstrated for the first time. The beam-beam compensation scheme allows for higher beam-beam parameters and therefore higher intensities and luminosity. In this paper, we detail the design considerations and verification of the electron beam parameters of the RHIC e-lenses. Longitudinal and transverse alignments with ion beams and the transverse beam transfer function measurement with head-on electronproton beam are presented.

A new system used for monitoring energetic Coulomb-scattered electrons as the main diagnostic for accurately aligning the electron and ion beams in the new Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) electron lenses is described in detail. The theory of electron scattering from relativistic ions is developed and applied to the design and implementation of the system used to achieve and maintain the alignment. Commissioning with gold and 3 He beams is then described as well as the successful utilization of the new system during the 2015 RHIC polarized proton run. Systematic errors of the new method are then estimated. Finally, some possible future applications of Coulomb-scattered electrons for beam diagnostics are briefly discussed.

Cooling of beams of gold ions using electron bunches accelerated with radio-frequency (RF) systems was recently experimentally demonstrated in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). Such an approach is new and opens the possibility of using this technique at higher energies than possible with electrostatic acceleration of electron beams. The challenges of this approach include generation of electron beams suitable for cooling, delivery of electron bunches of the required quality to the cooling sections without degradation of beam angular divergence and energy spread, achieving the required small angles between electron and ion trajectories in the cooling sections, precise velocity matching between the two beams, high-current operation of the electron accelerator, as well as several physics effects related to bunched-beam cooling. Here we report on the first demonstration of cooling hadron beams using this new approach.

The Low Energy RHIC electron Cooling (LEReC) project at Brookhaven National Laboratory recently demonstrated for the first time cooling of hadron bunches with radio-frequency (rf) accelerated electron bunches. LEReC uses a high-voltage photoemission electron gun with stringent requirements for beam current, beam quality, and stability. The electron gun has a photocathode with a high-power fiber laser, and a novel cathode production, transport, and exchange system. It has been demonstrated that the high-voltage photoemission gun can continually produce a high-current electron beam with a beam quality suitable for electron cooling. We describe the operational experience with the LEReC dc photoemission gun in RHIC and discuss the important aspects needed to achieve the required beam current, beam quality, and stability.