Spin tracking in RHIC

In the acceleration of polarized protons in RHIC many spin depolarizing resonances are encountered. Helical Siberian snakes will be used to overcome depolarizing effects. The behavior of polarization can be studied by numerical tracking in a model accelerator. That allows one to check the strength of the resonances, to study the effect of snakes, to find safe lattice tune regions, and finally to study the operation of special devices like spin flippers. In this paper the authors describe numerical spin tracking. Results show that, for the design corrected distorted orbit and the design beam emittance, the polarization of the beam will be preserved in the whole range of proton energies in RHIC