Manipulation of rare isotope beams – from high to low energies

Projectile fragmentation above 50 MeV/u and in-flight separation is a powerful technique for the production and delivery of rare isotopes. The production is fast and chemistry independent, providing nuclides far away from the valley of beta stability and for a very large range of elements. These benefits can be maximized if the produced rare isotopes are made available also as low-energy beams (<15 MeV/u) and at rest. For this purpose the fast beams need to be slowed down and thermalized before being re-accelerated to the desired energy. This can be achieved with gas stopping techniques. This paper discusses various aspects of stopping fast rare isotope beams, including the development of a “cyclotron gas stopper” that promises to overcome the limitations of present linear gas stopping schemes.