IonCool—A versatile code to characterize gas-filled ion bunchers and coolers (not only) for nuclear physics applications

A Monte-Carlo simulation package is presented which has primarily been used to characterize ion bunching devices based on gas-filled (linear) Paul traps and Penning traps. The code calculates the motion of ions in the presence of arbitrary electric and/or magnetic fields modeling the effect of the buffer gas by realistically simulating collisions between ions and buffer gas molecules. A summary of the algorithm is presented. Examples of applications of the code are discussed, which include the ion beam bunchers of ISOLTRAP, REXTRAP, LIST and LEBIT.