Overcoming horizontal depolarizing resonances with multiple tune jumps

In a medium energy proton synchrotron, strong enough partial Siberian snakes can be used to avoid both imperfection and vertical intrinsic depolarizing resonances. However, partial snakes tilt the stable spin direction away from vertical, which generates depolarizing resonances associated with horizontal tune. The relatively weak but numerous horizontal intrinsic resonances are the main source of the residual polarization losses. A pair of horizontal tune jump quads have been used in the Brookhaven Alternating Gradient Synchrotron to overcome these weak resonances. The locations of the two quads have to be chosen such that the disturbance to the beam optics is minimum. The emittance growth has to be mitigated for this method to work. In addition, this technique needs very accurate jump timing. Using two partial Siberian snakes, with vertical tune inside the spin tune gap and 80% polarization at the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron injection, polarized proton beam had reached 1.5 x 10(11) proton per bunch with 65% polarization. With the tune jump timing optimized and emittance preserved, more than 70% polarization with 2 x 10(11) protons per bunch has been achieved. The polarization transport efficiency is close to 90%.