Researchers at Technical University of Darmstadt and the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research have succeeded for the first time in decelerating highly charged ions from the GSI accelerator to low energies and subsequently storing them in a Penning trap. They were also successful in performing the first electron cooling of highly charged ions in such a trap. The results have been published in Physical Review X (PRX).

Highly charged ions are typically produced at high energies and travel at high velocities. However, many experiments in atomic, nuclear and fundamental physics require these ions to be strongly decelerated, captured and cooled. The HITRAP facility at GSI was specifically developed for this purpose and will provide unique opportunities for experiments with slow highly charged ions.

In the work now published, carried out in close collaboration with GSI’s Decelerator Division, researchers succeeded for the first time in decelerating and trapping fully ionized argon ions from the accelerator system through several stages.