Laser Cooling and Optical Diagnostics for Relativistic Ion Beams

Cooling of ion beams is essential for precision experiments at future storage rings. Laser cooling is one of the most promising techniques to reach high phase space densities at relativistic ion energies for all ion species which provide suitable atomic cooling transitions.

Establishing laser cooling as a standard technique at future storage rings requires laser sources that can address ion beams with large initial velocity spreads.

Without optical diagnostics however, the dynamics of ions at very low temperatures cannot be resolved, as conventional beam diagnostics reach their resolution limits.

We discuss concepts and techniques that pave the way for making laser cooling a reliable tool at future storage rings, some of which can already be tested at the ESR at GSI.