The TRIµP facility, under construction at KVI, requires the production and separation of short-lived and rare isotopes. Direct reactions, fragmentation and fusionevaporation reactions in normal and inverse kinematics are foreseen to produce nuclides of interest with a variety of heavy-ion beams from the superconducting cyclotron AGOR. For this purpose, we have designed, constructed and commissioned a versatile magnetic separator that allows efficient injection into an ion catcher, i.e., gas-filled stopper/cooler or thermal ionizer, from which a low energy radioactive beam will be extracted.The separator performance was tested with the production and clean separation of 21 Na ions, where a beam purity of 99.5% could be achieved. For fusion-evaporation products, some of the features of its operation as a gas-filled recoil separator were tested.
Efficient production of short-lived radioactive isotopes in inverse reaction kinematics is an important technique for various applications. It is particularly interesting when the isotope of interest is only a few nucleons away from a stable isotope. In this article production via charge exchange and stripping reactions in combination with a magnetic separator is explored. The relation between the separator transmission efficiency, the production yield, and the choice of beam energy is discussed. The results of some exploratory experiments will be presented.
The structures for the TRIµP facility have been completed and commissioned. At the facility radioactive nuclides are produced to study fundamental interactions and symmetries. An important feature is the possibility to trap radioactive atoms in order to obtain and hold a pure substrate-free sample for precision measurements. In the TRIµP facility a production target is followed by a magnetic separator, where radioactive isotopes are produced in inverse reaction kinematics. Separation up to 99.95% could be achieved for 21 Na. A novel transmitting thermal ionizing device was developed to stop the energetic isotopes. Some 50% of stopped 21 Na could be extracted and transported as low energy singly charged ions into a radio frequency quadrupole cooler and buncher with 35% transmission efficiency. The ions are transported lossless via a drift tube and a low energy electrostatic beam line into the experimental setup. Such ions can be neutralized on hot metal foils and the resulting atoms can be stored in a magneto-optical trap. The functioning of that principle was demonstrated with stable Na extracted from the thermal ionizer, radioactive beams will follow next.
At KVI the technical structures for the TRIμP facility are nearly all in place. The aim of the project is to use radioactive ions to study fundamental interactions and symmetries. We will measure β-recoil correlations in nuclear β decay. There the V,A structure of the Weak interaction may be violated. The second line of research is the search for a permanent electric dipole moment in Ra, with a magnitude forbidden by the Standard Model. By trapping these radioactive nuclei in atom traps a pure sample that can be manipulated facilitates these searches. The TRIμP facility consists of a production target and magnetic separator on the high energy side and a Radio-Frequency Quadrupole (RFQ) cooler and buncher on the low energy side. An ion catcher stops the fast product nuclides and transport them into the RFQ cooler. New technological approaches were implemented for several of these devices.
An effective ion catcher is an important part of a radioactive beam facility that is based on in-flight production. The catcher stops fast radioactive products and emits them as singly charged slow ions. Current ion catchers are based on stopping in He and H 2 gas. However, with increasing intensity of the secondary beam the amount of ion-electron pairs created eventually prevents the electromagnetic extraction of the radioactive ions from the gas cell. In contrast, such limitations are not present in thermal ionizers used with the ISOL production technique. Therefore, at least for alkaline and alkaline earth elements, a thermal ionizer should then be preferred. An important use of the TRIµP facility will be for precision measurements using atom traps. Atom trapping is particularly possible for alkaline and alkaline earth isotopes. The facility can produce up to 10 9 s −1 of various Na isotopes with the inflight method. Therefore, we have built and tested a thermal ionizer. An overview of the operation, design, construction, and commissioning of the thermal ionizer for TRIµP will be presented along with first results for 20 Na and 21 Na.
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