FIRST OBSERVATION OF A SNAKE DEPOLARIZING RESONANCE

Using a 104MeV stored polarized proton beam and a full Siberian snake, we recently found evidence for a so-called {open_quotes}snake{close_quotes} depolarizing resonance. A full Siberian snake forces the spin tune {nu}{sub s} to be a half integer. Thus, if the vertical betatron tune {nu}{sub y} is set near a quarter integer, then the {nu}{sub s}=n{plus_minus}2{nu}{sub y} second-order snake resonance can depolarize the beam. Indeed, with a full Siberian snake, we found a deep depolarization dip when {nu}{sub y} was equal to 4.756; moreover, when {nu}{sub y} was changed to 4.781, the deep dip disappeared and the polarization was preserved. {copyright} {ital 1997} {ital The American Physical Society}