Synchro-betatron coupling in a proton storage ring with electron cooling was studied experimentally by modulating a transverse dipole field close to the synchrotron frequency. The combination of the electron cooling and transverse field modulation on the synchrotron oscillation is equivalent to a dissipative parametric resonant system. The proton bunch was observed to split longitudinally into two pieces, or beamlets, converging toward attractors of the dissipative system. These phenomena might be important in understanding the effect of ground vibration on the Superconducting Super Collider beam, and the effect of power supply ripple on the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider beam.PACS numbers: 03.20.+i, 05.45.+b, 29.20.Dh In a recent experiment [1], we found that the longitudinal response of a beam to the phase modulation of the accelerating field exhibited characteristics of a parametric resonant system [2]. The equation of motion for phase oscillations [3] of a particle in a synchrotron, in the absence of forced oscillations, is given by ¢ + w;(sin 4>-sin 4>o) = 0.Here w8 = w0 ;; J] is the small amplitude synchrotron angular frequency at 4>o = 0, wo is the angular revolution frequency, and h,V, and ¢0 are, respectively, the harmonic number, the peak rf voltage, and the synchronous phase angle, (3c and E are, respectively, the speed and the energy of the particle, and rJ is the phase slip factor. Coupled motion between the transverse and longitudinal degrees of freedom is called synchro-betatron (SB) coupling.The SB coupling is important to electron storage rings [5], where the fractional parts of the synchrotron and betatron tunes are of the same order of magnitude. On the other hand, the fractional part of the betatron and synchrotron tunes differ substantially in proton storage rings, and the coupling between longitudinal and transverse motions is less important. To the knowledge of the authors, SB coupling has not been observed previously in proton storage rings. For the SSC, where the synchrotron frequency varies from 7 Hz at injection energy to 4Hz at 20 TeV, SB coupling may arise due to ground vibration. At Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, the synchrotron frequency ramps through 60 Hz around 17 GeV/c for heavy ion beams, SB coupling may result from power supply ripple.The dominant effect of ground vibration or power supply ripple is a modulation of the dipole field. A slow adiabatic dipole modulation gives rise to a closed orbit modulation. Provided that the resulting closed or-