From laser cooling of non-relativistic to relativistic ion beams

Laser cooling of stored 24Mg+ ion beams recently led to the long anticipated experimental realization of Coulomb-ordered ‘crystalline’ ion beams in the low-energy RF-quadrupole storage ring PAul Laser CooLing Acceleration System (Munich). Moreover, systematic studies revealed severe constraints on the cooling scheme and the storage ring lattice for the attainment and maintenance of the crystalline state of the beam, which will be summarized. With the envisaged advent of high-energy heavy ion storage rings like SIS 300 at GSI (Darmstadt), which offer favourable lattice conditions for space-charge-dominated beams, we here discuss the general scaling of laser cooling of highly relativistic beams of highly charged ions and present a novel idea for direct three-dimensional beam cooling by forcing the ions onto a helical path.