Bonn 2025 – scientific programme
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A: Fachverband Atomphysik
A 39: Highly Charged Ions and their Applications
A 39.7: Talk
Friday, March 14, 2025, 12:30–12:45, KlHS Mathe
FOSS Precision Timing Control for Heavy Ion Cooling at HITRAP — •Jonas Ködel1, Zoran Andelkovic2, Svetlana Fedotova2, Wolfgang Geithner2, Henning Hegen2, Frank Herfurth2, Nikolaus Kurz2, Dennis Neidherr2, Wilfried Nörtershäuser1, Simon Rausch1, Nils Stallkamp2,3, Sergiy Trotsenko2, Gleb Vorobjev2, Michael Wiebusch2, and Dimitrios Zisis1 — 1Institut f. Kernphysik, TU Darmstadt, Schloßgartenstr. 9, Darmstadt, Germany — 2GSI Helmholtzzentrum f. Schwerionenforschung, Planckstr. 1, Darmstadt, Germany — 3Institut f. Kernphysik, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany
Operating modern scientific apparatus requires smooth interaction of hard- and software. Industry standard software solutions offered by for-profit companies create unfavourable dependencies, locking experimenters into a walled garden that is hard to leave, and costly to stay in. We present the deployment of a free, open-source software (FOSS) solution for control of the Penning trap of the highly charged ion trap (HITRAP) during the most recent beamtime. HITRAP is located at GSI Darmstadt and allows deceleration and cooling of heavy, highly charged ions (HCI) down to 6 kev/u. Sympathetic cooling of HCI by concurrently stored electrons in a Penning trap is used as the final deceleration and cooling stage. The electrodes of the trap are switched in user-programmed patterns with nanosecond accuracy. Hard- and software of the trap control system are developed in-house. Their capabilities and the feasibility of a FOSS solution to experiment control are proven by their successful deployment during the recent beamtime.
Keywords: Cooling; Highly Charged Ions; Penning Trap; Control Systems; Experiment Control