Status of deceleration and laser spectroscopy of highly charged ions at HITRAP

Abstract

Heavy few-electron ions are relatively simple systems in terms of electron structure and offer unique opportunities to conduct experiments under extremely large electromagnetic fields that exist around their nuclei. However, the preparation of highly charged ions (HCI) has remained the major challenge for experiments. As an extension of the existing GSI accelerator facility, the HITRAP facility was conceived as a multi-stage decelerator for HCI produced at high velocity. It is designed to prepare bunches of around 10 5 HCI and to deliver them at low energies to various experiments. One of these experiments is SpecTrap, aiming for laser spectroscopy of trapped, cold HCI. We present the latest results on deceleration of ions in a radio-frequency quadrupole, synchrotron cooling of electrons in a trap as a preparation step for the prospective electron cooling of the HCI decelerated in HITRAP, as well as laser cooling of singly charged Mg ions for sympathetic cooling of HCI in SpecTrap.

Laser spectroscopy measurement of the 2s-hyperfine splitting in lithium-like bismuth

“…This improvement cannot be achieved at a storage ring. Therefore the SpecTrap Penning trap is currently being installed at the HITRAP facility [46] at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research that is especially designed for laser spectroscopy on the ground state of hydrogen-like and lithium-like heavy ions [48,49,50].…”