We recently analyzed all available data on spin-flipping stored beams of polarized protons, electrons, and deuterons. Fitting the modified Froissart-Stora equation to the measured polarization data after crossing an rf-induced spin resonance, we found 10–20-fold deviations from the depolarizing resonance strength equations used for many years. The polarization was typically manipulated by linearly sweeping the frequency of an rf dipole or rf solenoid through an rf-induced spin resonance; spin-flip efficiencies of up to $99.9\%$ were obtained. The Lorentz invariance of an rf dipole’s transverse $\int Bdl$ and the weak energy dependence of its spin resonance strength $\mathcal{E}$ together imply that even a small rf dipole should allow efficient spin flipping in 100 GeV or even TeV storage rings; thus, it is important to understand these large deviations. Therefore, we recently studied the resonance strength deviations experimentally by varying the size and vertical betatron tune of a $2.1\mathrm{GeV}/c$ polarized proton beam stored in COSY. We found no dependence of $\mathcal{E}$ on beam size, but we did find almost 100-fold enhancements when the rf spin resonance was near an intrinsic spin resonance.

• Received 31 March 2006

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevSTAB.9.051001

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