Cooling of radioactive isotopes for Schottky mass spectrometry

Abstract

Nuclear masses of radioactive isotopes can be determined by measurement of their revolution frequency relative to the revolution frequency of reference ions with well-known masses. The resolution of neighboring frequency lines and the accuracy of the mass measurement is dependent on the achievable minimum longitudinal momentum spread of the ion beam. Electron cooling allows an increase of the phase space density by several orders of magnitude. For high intensity beams Coulomb scattering in the dense ion beam limits the beam quality. For low intensity beams a regime exists in which the diffusion due to intrabeam scattering is not dominating any more. The minimum momentum spread δp/p=5×10−7 which is observed by Schottky noise analysis is considerably higher than the value expected from the longitudinal electron temperature. The measured frequency spread results from fluctuations of the magnetic field in the storage ring magnets. Systematic mass measurements have started and can be presently used for ions with half-lives of some ten seconds. For shorter-lived nuclei a stochastic precooling system is in preparation.