Beam dynamics limits for low-energy RHIC operation

There is a strong interest in low-energy RHIC operations in the single-beam total energy range of 2.5-25 GeV/nucleon [1-3]. Collisions in this energy range, much of which is below nominal RHIC injection energy, will help to answer one of the key questions in the field of QCD about the existence and location of a critical point on the QCD phase diagram [4]. There have been several short test runs during 2006-2008 RHIC operations to evaluate RHIC operational challenges at these low energies [5]. Beam lifetimes observed during the test runs were limited by machine nonlinearities. This performance limit can be improved with sufficient machine tuning. The next luminosity limitation comes from transverse and longitudinal Intra-beam Scattering (IBS), and ultimately from the space-charge limit. Here we summarize dynamic effects limiting beam lifetime and possible improvement with electron cooling (for more details see Ref. [6]).