Measurement of the lifetime of Pb52+, Pb53+ and Pb54+ beams at 4.2 MeV per nucleon subject to electron cooling

Abstract By measuring the lifetime of stored beams, the recombination of the ions with cooling electrons was investigated. Rates found are larger than expected for radiative electron capture and significantly higher for Pb 53+ than for Pb 54+ and Pb 52+ . These results are important for the design of the lead ion injection system for the Large Hadron Collider and for recombination theories.