Development of the RF carpet for a cryogenic gas cell at HIAF and ion transport simulations

A cryogenic RF-carpet gas cell is being developed to stop and extract neutron-rich heavy nuclei produced via multi-nucleon transfer (MNT) reactions at the low-energy experimental station at the high intensity heavy-ion accelerator facility (HIAF). An RF carpet was constructed and tested offline using an alkali ion source.Ion extraction efficiencies of the RF carpet were measured both at room temperature and at cryogenic temperature. Ion transport simulations based on the classical ion-gas scattering potential successfully reproduced the observed trends and indicated that lower RF amplitudes are required at cryogenic temperatures to transport ions at the same helium gas density.