GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research

Ultra-sensitive Beam Intensity Measurement

Trainee: David Haider
Supervisor: Peter Forck and Thomas Sieber

At the GSI beam instrumentation group new diagnostics devices are permanently developed to match the requirements of the upcoming Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) at GSI/Darmstadt, Germany. One of the major fields of research is the non-destructive measurement of beam intensity in the high energy beam transport sections and in the storage rings. In the frame of a preceding Mari-Curie fellowship, extensive investigations on a superconducting SQUID based Cryogenic Current Comparator

(CCC) for intensity measurements down to the nA range have been performed.

This device measures the beam intensity via the beam magnetic field (fT-range), which requires meticulous shielding. The results from the prototype measurements led to the design of an advanced CCC for FAIR, which shall be installed in our Cryring@ESR facility.

The work related to this topic covers a large spectrum of topics in the accelerator field, like mechanical design, vacuum, cryogenics, superconductivity, electronics, simulations, control applications, beam operation, data acquisition etc. The goal is the setup, commissioning and successful operation of the new FAIR CCC in Cryring, as well as its optimization and comparison with other diagnostic schemes.

The fellow will work in the field of high-end technologies, on an interesting and challenging device, which combines numerous aspects of physics and technology.

More information can be found here

Reservoir Trap to Deliver Single Antiparticles to Penning Trap Experiments

Trainee: Jeffrey Klimes
Supervisor: Wolfgang Quint

In order to make precision experiments for tests of CPT invariance independent of accelerator-beam time cycles and shut-down periods it would be highly desirable to have an additional controllable source of antiprotons.

This projectwill develop, build and test a ‘reservoir trap’ at GSI which can deliver a well-defined number of antiprotons, and even a single particle, into adjacent precision traps for periodic measurement cycles over extended periods of time. This reservoir trap will make experiments independent of accelerator beam-times and shut-down periods and will provide beams at different energies. The electrode design of the trap will be optimized through beam dynamics and stability studies with a focus on a controlled transfer of specific particle numbers to experiments by tailored electromagnetic pulsing using direct digital sampling. A novel extraction scheme which allows transport energies as low as few eV up to few keV employing post-extraction acceleration by dedicated ion optics will also be studied.