Physics with tagged forward protons at RHIC

The physics reach of the STAR detector at RHIC has been extended to include elastic and inelastic diffraction measurements with tagged forward protons. This program has started at RHIC in p+p collisions with a special optics run of β⋆∼21 m at STAR, at the center-of-mass energy during the last week of the RHIC 2009 run.