PROGRESS OF THE eRHIC ELECTRON RING DESIGN

Over the past year, a baseline design of the electron ring for the eRHIC hadron-lepton collider has been developed. This site-specific design is based on the understanding of the existing RHIC machine performance and its possible upgrades. The design includes a full energy polarized electron beam injector to ensure operational reliability and to provide high integrated luminosity. The electron ring energy range is 5 to 10 GeV. The electron beam emittance, the electron beam path length, and the interaction region optics have to be adjustable over wide ranges depending on the ion species and energy for collisions. We describe the design features and expected machine performance. The results of recent beam polarization and beam-beam studies are also discussed.