RHIC OPERATION WITH LONGITUDINALLY POLARIZED PROTONS

Polarized proton beams have been accelerated, stored and collided at 100GeV per beam in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) with longitudinal polarization. The essential equipment includes four Siberian snakes, eight spin rotators and fast relative polarimeters in each of the two RHIC rings as well as local polarimeters at the STAR and PHENIX detectors. This paper summarizes the perfor- mance of RHIC as a polarized proton collider in the FY03 run with emphasis on polarization issues. Preliminary data from the FY04 run is also shown.