HITRAP – Heavy, highly charged Ions at Rest: Status and experimental Opportunities

HITRAP, the facility for heavy, highly-charged ions at rest, is being commissioned at GSI in Darmstadt. The highly-charged ions are produced by stripping all electrons at 400 MeV/u and then decelerating the beam of bare, heavy nuclei in a storage ring, the ESR, and a linear decelerator. The first steps have been taken into operation successfully; about 105 ions have been decelerated to 0.5 MeV/u. The remaining deceleration and cooling in a RFQ decelerator structure and a Penning trap is prepared. For off-line tests of the experiments as well as the cooler Penning trap, a compact room-temperature EBIT has been installed and delivers beam already.