Post Acceleration of Radioactive Beams: A New Tool for Nuclear Physics Studies

Abstract

The production of radioactive nuclear beams is a topic of great current interest. Possible applications for such beams can be found in nuclear astrophysics, solid state physics and nuclear structure physics¹. Basically one has two schemes for the production of radioactive nuclear beams. A first scheme that is already used for a few years, bombards a target with a high—energy heavy ion beam creating high—energy secondary (radioactive) beams. The kinematics of the reaction makes it possible to separate the recoil products from the primary beam². In a second scheme the radioactive nuclear beams are produced by post—acceleration of ISOL (Isotope Separator On Line) beams. This scheme has been used, for the first time, at Louvain—la—Neuve (Belgium) by coupling two cyclotrons with an Electron Cyclotron Resonance (ECR) ion source.