0000000000180317
AUTHOR
Friedhelm Ames
Bunching and cooling of radioactive ions with REXTRAP
The properties of radioactive ion beams produced by the present on-line target ion source technology are often not suitable for direct post acceleration. For that purpose pulsed and cooled beams of higher charged ions are required. In the case of REX-ISOLDE, the post accelerator at the CERN-ISOLDE radioactive beam facility, a unique system for beam preparation is used. It consists of a gas-filled cylindrical Penning trap (REXTRAP) for bunching and cooling followed by an electron beam ion source for charge state breeding. The Penning trap has been successfully operated with an efficiency of up to 40% and a total number of up to 107 ions stored. Buffer-gas sideband cooling at the ions’ cyclot…
Space Charge Effects in a Gas Filled Penning Trap
Mass selective buffer gas cooling is a technique used for ions that are stored in a Penning trap. The technique can be applied to all elements and the mass resolving power achieved has proven to be sufficient to resolve isobars. When not only a few but 106 and more ions are stored at the same time, space charge starts to play a dominant role for the spatial distribution. In addition, the observed cyclotron frequency is shifted. This work investigates these effects by numerical calculations.
Space-Charge Effects with REXTRAP
The beam quality of radioactive ion beams produced by present target ion source technology is often not sufficient for direct post-acceleration. Furthermore, pulsed beams insure a more efficient use of an accelerator. In the case of REX-ISOLDE, the post accelerator at the CERN ISOLDE facility, a gas-filled Penning trap (REXTRAP) has been chosen for accumulation of the radioactive ions and conversion into cooled bunches. Radial centering of the ions is achieved by applying an rf field with a frequency equal to the cyclotron frequency of the desired ion species. The efficiency achieved in the first tests with different isotopes covering nearly the entire mass range was already >20%. Going to …
Status of REX-ISOLDE
REX-ISOLDE [1] is a post-accelerator situated at the ISOLDE radioactive ion beam facility placed at CERN, Geneva. It’s main aim is to increase the energy of light (A < 50) radioactive ions from 60 keV to 0.8–2.2MeV/u. REX—ISOLDE uses a new concept of post-acceleration of radioactive ion beams by using charge breeding of the ions in a high charge state ion source and the efficient acceleration of the highly charged ions in a short LINAC using modern ion accelerator structures. In a first step the radioactive ions are captured in a large gas-filled Penning trap. The task is to accumulate, cool and bunch the beam and prepare it for the injection into an electron beam ion source (EBIS). Cooling…