Conception of PIPERADE: A high-capacity Penning-trap mass separator for high isobaric contamination at DESIR

The DESIR (decay, excitation and storage of radioactive ions) facility at GANIL-SPIRAL2 will receive a large variety of exotic nuclei at low energy (up to 60 keV) with high intensities. However, the production methods of radioactive beams are non selective, limiting the purity of the beams of interest. Moreover, the high precision needed for nuclear structure and astrophysics studies using beta decay spectroscopy, laser spectroscopy and trap-based experiments at DESIR requires highly pure samples of exotic nuclei. The aim of the double-Pennig-trap mass separator PIPERADE is to deliver large and very pure samples of exotic nuclei to the different experiments in DESIR. New excitation schemes and a large inner diameter of the first trap will mitigate space charge effects to attempt trapping of up to 105 ions per pulse. The purification cycle will be performed in a few milliseconds so that short-lived nuclei can be purified. To extract the nuclides of interest from the large amount of isobaric contaminants, a resolving power of 105 is mandatory. Afterwards the ions of interest will be accumulated in the second trap until they constitute a sufficiently pure sample for the measurements. The status of the project is presented.