The PHENIX Conceptual Design Report (CDR) describes the detector design of the PHENIX experiment for Day-1 operation at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The CDR presents the physics capabilities, technical details, cost estimate, construction schedule, funding profile, management structure, and possible upgrade paths of the PHENIX experiment. The primary goals of the PHENIX experiment are to detect the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) and to measure its properties. Many of the potential signatures for the QGP are measured as a function of a well-defined common variable to see if any or all of these signatures show a simultaneous anomaly due to the formation of the QGP. In addition, basic quantum chromodynamics phenomena, collision dynamics, and thermodynamic features of the initial states of the collision are studied. To achieve these goals, the PHENIX experiment measures lepton pairs (dielectrons and dimuons) to study various properties of vector mesons, such as the mass, the width, and the degree of yield suppression due to the formation of the QGP. The effect of thermal radiation on the continuum is studied in different regions of rapidity and mass. The e? coincidence is measured to study charm production, and aids in understanding the shape of the continuum dilepton spectrum. Photons are measured to study direct emission of single photons and to study?° and? production. Charged hadrons are identified to study the spectrum shape, production of antinuclei, the? meson (via KK{sup −} decay), jets, and two-boson correlations. The measurements are made down to small cross sections to allow the study of high p{sub T} spectra, and J/? and? production. The PHENIX collaboration consists of over 300 scientists, engineers, and graduate students from 43 institutions in 10 countries. This large international collaboration is supported by US resources and significant foreign resources.

The conceptual design of a collider capable of accelerating and colliding heavy ions and to be constructed in the existing 3.8 km tunnel at Brookhaven has been developed. The collider has been designed to provide collisions of gold ions at six intersection points with a luminosity of about 2 x 1026 cm/sup /minus/2/sec/sup /minus/1/ at an energy per nucleon of 100 GeV in each beam. Collisions with different ion species, including protons, will be possible. The salient design features and the reasons for major design choices of the proposed machine are discussed in this paper. 28 refs., 2 figs., 1 tab.

The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven will extend the present heavy ion capabilities of the AGS into an energy domain not available at any other laboratory within the foreseeable future. Operation of the AGS for heavy ion experiments started in October 1986 with the delivery of O/sup 8 +/ beams. Subsequently, the mass range was extended with the AGS delivering typically 2 x 108 Si/sup 14 +/ ions/pulse at a kinetic energy of 13.8 GeV/u. Completion of the AGS booster synchrotron in 1991 will extend the mass range to the heaviest ions, typically 179Au, with 238U a definite possibility. The acceleration of heavy ions to very high energies at Brookhaven was already considered for the ISABELLE/CBA project. After its cancellation, the realization of a dedicated heavy ion collider in the vacant tunnel became feasible and the design objectives were defined in 1983 by a Task Force on Relativistic Heavy Ion Physics. The study of such a heavy ion accelerator/collider was initially supported by generic RandD funds and later on as part of the Brookhaven Exploratory Research Program. The results of this multi-year RandD effort were presented in the May 1986 Conceptual Design Report (CDR). This document remains valid in most respects but progress resulting from two years of intensive RandD work, now supported with direct DOE funds, in the areas of accelerator physics and superconducting magnet technology resulted in a few design improvements. The present paper summarizes the major features of the RHIC design with emphasis on those aspects of particular interest to the future user and it concludes with a short discussion of the superconducting magnet RandD program. 10 refs., 15 figs., 3 tabs.

The most recent conceptual design manual for the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven was published in May 1986 (BNL 51932). The purpose of this workshop was to review the design specifications in this RHIC reference manual, and to discuss in detail possible improvements in machine performance by addressing four main areas. These areas are beam-beam interactions, stochastic cooling, rf and bunch instabilities. The contents of this proceedings are as follows. Following an overview of the workshop, in which the motivation and goals are discussed in detail, transcripts of the first day talks are given. Many of these transcripts are copies of the original transparencies presented at the meeting. The following four sections contain contributed papers, that resulted from discussions at the workshop within each of the four working groups. In addition, there is a group summary for each of the four working groups at the beginning of each section. Finally, a list of participants is given.