The REX-ISOLDE project

Abstract

The Radioactive beam Experiment (REX-ISOLDE) (D. Habs et al., Proposal to the ISOLDE committee, CERN-ISC94-25) a pilot experiment testing a new concept of post acceleration of radioactive ions at ISOLDE/CERN is now under progress. A further goal of the experiment is the spectroscopy of very neutron rich nuclei by Coulex and transfer reactions (D. Habs et al., Nucl. Phys. A 616 (1997) 29c). Radioactive singly charged ions delivered by the on-line mass separator ISOLDE are first accumulated in a Penning trap, then charge breeded to A/ q=4.5 in an electron beam ion source (EBIS) and finally accelerated in a LINAC to the final energy between 0.8 and 2.2 MeV/u. First tests will be done with the Penning trap to measure efficiencies and the ion capacity of the trap. In the next shut down period of ISOLDE the charge breeding and the mass separation system will be installed. Meanwhile the resonant structures of the LINAC consisting of a Radio Frequency Quadrupole (RFQ) accelerator, an interdigital H-type structure (IH) and three seven gap resonators, which allow a variation of the final beam energy are under construction and models are built. The design of the RFQ has slightly changed to get a less diverging beam at the RFQ exit to decrease the constraints of the matching section. The change of the final energy of the IH-structure by adjusting the gap-voltage distribution due to capacitive plungers has been calculated with MAFIA and tested by model measurements. This paper gives an overview of the status of the project and of the final design of the LINAC.