Charge-exchange cross sections and beam lifetimes for stored and decelerated bare uranium ions

Charge-exchange cross sections and beam lifetimes are studied for decelerated bare uranium ions at the ESR storage ring. By deceleration from the initial energy of 358 MeV/u down to various energies as low as 49 MeV/u, i.e. far below the production energy of bare ionic species, the electron pick-up cross sections were obtained for collisions with N_2, Ar, CH_4 and Kr gaseous targets. The measured cross sections and beam lifetimes are compared with the theoretical results for radiative and non-radiative electron capture. The present data along with the theoretical approximations discussed, provide a solid basis for the estimation of beam lifetimes for decelerated bare high-Z ions. Moreover, a normalization procedure is proposed, in which absolute total charge-exchange cross sections are derived by normalizing the simultaneously measured yield of K-REC photons to rigorously calculated relativistic cross sections. This method along with the unprecedented beam conditions at the ESR storage ring, allows a significant improvement in the accuracy of cross section data. (orig.)SIGLEAvailable from TIB Hannover: RO 801(98-42) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekDEGerman