Upgrade and operation of the BNL tandems for RHIC injection

One of the tandem Van de Graaffs (MP7) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) has successfully completed its first year as an injector for the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The tandem provided pulsed beam of Au/sup +32/ (peak intensity 80 e/spl mu/A, 500 /spl mu/s) with only 17 hours of downtime during a 5 month run. Improvements are being made to further increase the intensity of the gold beam for the experimental run starting in 2001. A second tandem Van de Graaff (MP6) has been extensively upgraded and can now reach a terminal voltage of over 14MV. A beamline has been constructed to transport the MP6 beam around MP7 and then connect to the existing MP7 beamlines. This has allowed MP6 to deliver beam to local target rooms for an outside user program, while MP7 has simultaneously injected RHIC. MP6 can also be used as an injector for RHIC.