Design of an rf separation system for a proton-rich radioisotope beam produced by using an in-flight fragment separator

摘要

An in-flight fragment separator is a device to separate a radioisotope (RI) beam of interest produced by bombarding a thin target with a primary heavy-beam usually of high intensity. The isotope beam separation is done by momentum dispersion of dipole magnets and energy loss in a wedge-shaped degrader. However, this separation method is not sufficient for proton-rich isotope beams because their momenta tend to overlap with the low-momentum tails of more abundant fragments produced with larger cross sections. An additional separation technique, which relies on the velocity difference in the isotope beams, can be used to enhance the purity of the desired isotope beam. A separation system based on an rf-kicker was considered, and its beam line was designed using the TRANSPORT and the COSY INFINITY codes. Trajectories and vertical separations of the RI beams were calculated using the LISE_(++) code. The background isotope beam can be greatly reduced with the use of the rf separator system, but transmission of the isotope beam may be reduced by the aperture of the rf kicker. The lower rf frequency of the primary beam is an important factor in adopting the rf separator system. The electromagnetic design of the rf-kicker was studied.