RADIATION PROTECTION FOR THE RELATIVISTIC HEAVY ION-COLLIDER AT THE BROOKHAVEN NATIONAL LABORATORY

The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) is a high energy particle accelerator built to study basic nuclear physics. It consists of two counter-rotating beams of fully stripped gold ions that are accelerated in two rings to an energy of 100 GeV/nucleon. The rings consist of a circular lattice of superconducting magnets 3.8 km in circumference. The beams can be stored for a period of five to ten hours and brought into collision for experiments during that time. The first major physics objective when the facility goes into operation is to recreate a state of matter, the quark-gluon plasma, that has been predicted to have existed at a short time after the creation of the universe. There are only a few other high energy particle accelerators like RHIC in the world. The rules promulgated in the Code of Federal Regulations under the Atomic Energy Act do not cover prompt radiation from accelerators, nor are there any State regulations that govern the design and operation of a superconducting collider. Special design criteria for prompt radiation were developed to provide guidance for the design of radiation shielding