Energy upgrade as regards quench performance

Since the cross section for W production increases rapidly with energy, we consider the possibility of increasing the collision energy of polarized protons at RHIC. The limits of present hardware are examined with a particular emphasis on the quench training performance of magnets. Ignoring the limits of the DX magnets, the short-sample currents for the main arc (8 cm) dipoles could allow an increase of more than 30%, however we estimate 400 to 500 training quenches for the just 8 cm dipoles to reach this level. We propose that a 10% increase in energy might be achieved with the present hardware configuration. Raising the beam energy to 275 GeV ({radical}s = 550 GeV) should increase the W production rate by almost 50% from the 250 GeV level for the same optics with identical {beta}*'s at the collision points.