Bunching and cooling of radioactive ions with REXTRAP

Abstract The post-accelerator REX-ISOLDE at ISOLDE/CERN will deliver radioactive ion beams with energies up to 2.2 MeV/u. For this purpose, a Penning trap and an electron-beam ion source are combined with a linear accelerator. REXTRAP—a large gas-filled Penning trap—has started its commissioning phase. First tests have shown that REXTRAP is able to accumulate, cool and bunch stable ISOLDE ion beams covering a large mass range. Fulfilling the REX-ISOLDE demands, it can handle beam intensities from a few hundred up to 1×10 6 ions per pulse at repetition rates up to 50 Hz.