Electron cooling: Theory, experiment, application

Mass and lifetime measurements lead to the discovery and understanding of basic properties of matter. The isotopic nature of the chemical elements, nuclear binding, and the location and strength of nuclear shells are the most outstanding examples leading to the development of the first nuclear models. More recent are the discoveries of new structures of nuclides far from the valley of stability. A new generation of direct mass measurements which allows the exploration of extended areas of the nuclear mass surface with high accuracy has been opened up with the combination of the Experimental Storage Ring ESR and the FRragment Separator FRS at GSI Darmstadt. In-flight separated nuclei are stored in the ring. Their masses are directly determined from the revolution frequency. Dependent on the half-life two complementary methods are applied. Schottky Mass Spectrometry SMS relies on the measurement of the revolution frequency of electron cooled stored ions. The cooling time determines the lower half-life limit to the order of seconds. For Isochronous Mass Spectrometry IMS the ring is operated in an isochronous ion-optical mode. The revolution frequency of the individual ions coasting in the ring is measured using a time-of-flight method. Nuclides with lifetimes down to microseconds become accessible. With SMS masses of several hundreds nuclides have been measured simultaneously with an accuracy in the 2 x 10(-7)-range. This high accuracy and the ability to study large areas of the mass surface are ideal tools to discover new nuclear structure properties and to guide improvements for theoretical mass models. In addition, nuclear half-lives of stored bare and highly charged ions have been measured. This new experimental development is a significant progress since nuclear decay characteristics are mostly known for neutral atoms. For bare and highly charged ions new nuclear decay modes become possible, such as bound-state beta decay. Dramatic changes in the nuclear lifetime have been observed in highly charged ions compared to neutral atoms due to blocking of nuclear decay channels caused by the modified atomic interaction. High ionization degrees prevail in hot stellar matter and thus these experiments have great relevance for the understanding of the synthesis of elements in the universe and astrophysical scenarios in general.

Mass and lifetime measurements of exotic nuclei in storage rings

The electron-ion capture rate for low electron energies is calculated for various electron velocity distributions. Capture rates for electron-ion recombination stimulated by irradiation with light are evaluated. The results are applied to electron cooling and to positron-antiproton recombination to form antihydrogen. It is shown that laser-induced capture is a powerful method to study the electron cooling process and to maximize the antihydrogen rate. With this technique a pulsed antihydrogen beam of selectable energy and well collimated with an intensity of a few atoms per second can be anticipated.

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Laser-enhanced electron-ion capture and antihydrogen formation

▪ Abstract The development of heavy-ion storage-cooler rings for atomic physics has made it possible to produce high-quality beams of molecular ions that are internally cold. The stored molecular-ion beam is immersed in a cold electron bath, which gives a beam of low divergence and small cross-sectional area. The electron cooler also serves as a target for electron–molecular ion collision experiments. This allows the study of dissociative recombination of cold molecules with respect to cross sections, branching ratios, and angular distibutions at an unprecedented luminosity.

Dissociative recombination with ion storage rings.

We report on an experimental demonstration of electron cooling of high-energy antiprotons circulating in a storage ring. In our experiments, electron cooling, a well-established method at low energies (< 500 MeV/nucleon), was carried out in a new region of beam parameters, requiring a multi-MeV dc electron beam and an unusual beam transport line. In this letter we present the results of the longitudinal cooling force measurements and compare them with theoretical predictions.

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Experimental demonstration of relativistic electron cooling.

Experimental Studies of electron Cooling

Experiments on electron cooling were carried out on the antiproton storage ring, NAP-M, using 50 MeV proton beams, cooled with 27 keV electrons from a three electrode gun. The proton beam lifetime increased from 900 s to 5,000 s with electron cooling. Diagnostic methods are described, and some possible applications of electron cooling are discussed. (PMA)

Experiments on Electron Cooling

NEW RESULTS OF RESEARCH ON ELECTRON COOLING G.I. Budker, A.F. Bulushev, N.S. Dikanskij, V.I. Kononov, V.I. Kudelajnen, I.N. Meshkov, V.V. Parkhomchuk, D.V. Pestrikov, A.N. Skrinskij, B.N. Sukhina Novosibirsk 1976 Presented to the All Union High Energy Accelerator Conference Moscow, October 1976 Translated at CERN by O. Barbalat (Original: Russian) Not revised by the Translation Service (CERN Trans. 77-01) Geneva January 1977

http://cds.cern.ch/record/118046/files/CM-P00100706.pdf

New results of research on electron cooling

In recent years, experiments in high-energy physics have shown that one of the most promising means of studying the properties of elementary particles is by colliding beams. First, they open up a region of interaction energies at present unattainable using conventional accelerators. Second, they allow experiments to be performed in extremely clean conditions, when the observed interaction between two colliding particles is not contaminated by the presence of secondary interactions as in the conventional particle accelerator–fixed target scheme. This article describes the electron cooling method applied to proton–antiproton colliding beams.

I. N. Meshkov

Papers

Experimental Studies of electron Cooling

Experiments on Electron Cooling

New results of research on electron cooling

Electron cooling and its applications in elementary particle physics