W. Nörtershäuser

We have performed laser cooling of Mg ions confined in a Penning trap. The externally produced ions were captured in flight, stored and laser cooled. Laser-induced fluorescence was observed perpendicular to the cooling laser axis. Optical detection down to the single ion level together with electronic detection of the ion oscillations inside the Penning trap have been used to acquire information on the ion storage time, ion number and ion temperature. Evidence for formation of ion crystals has been observed. These investigations are an important prerequisite for sympathetic cooling of simultaneously stored highly-charged ions and precision laser spectroscopy of forbidden transitions in these.

A high-voltage divider with accuracy at the ppm level and collinear laser spectroscopy were used to calibrate the highvoltage installation at the radioactive ion beam facility ISOLDE at CERN. The accurate knowledge of this voltage is particularly important for collinear laser spectroscopy measurements. Beam velocity measurements using frequencycomb based collinear laser spectroscopy agree with the new calibration. Applying this, one obtains consistent results for isotope shifts of stable magnesium isotopes measured using collinear spectroscopy and laser spectroscopy on laser-cooled ions in a trap. The long-term stability and the transient behavior during recovery from a voltage dropout were investigated for the different power supplies currently applied at ISOLDE.

The research reactor TRIGA Mainz is an ideal facility to provide neutron-rich nuclides with production rates sufficiently large for mass spectrometric and laser spectroscopic studies. Within the TRIGA-SPEC project, a Penning trap as well as a beam line for collinear laser spectroscopy are being installed. Several new developments will ensure high sensitivity of the trap setup enabling mass measurements even on a single ion. Besides neutron-rich fission products produced in the reactor, also heavy nuclides such as 235-U or 252-Cf can be investigated for the first time with an off-line ion source. The data provided by the mass measurements will be of interest for astrophysical calculations on the rapid neutron-capture process as well as for tests of mass models in the heavy-mass region. The laser spectroscopic measurements will yield model-independent information on nuclear ground-state properties such as nuclear moments and charge radii of neutron-rich nuclei of refractory elements far from stability. This publication describes the experimental setup as well as its present status.