THE BNL EBIS PROGRAM - STATUS AND PLAINS

Recently an Electron Beam Ion Source (EBIS), on long term loan from Sa ndia National Laboratories, has been put into operation at Brookhaven National Laboratory. This source is being primarily used as a test dev ice to answer questions relevant to the eventual design of an EBIS-bas ed heavy ion preinjector for RHIC; a secondary objective is to determi ne parameters of an EBIS capable of delivering fully stripped light io ns up to neon for medical applications. Such a source can easily produ ce all ions in charge states as needed, but the challenge lies in reac hing intensities of interest to RHIC (2-3 x 10(9) particles/pulse). Th e source studies are planned to address issues such as scaling of the electron beam current in stages up to 10 A, possible onset and control of instabilities, external ion injection, parametric studies of the i on yield, charge state distributions and emittance of the extracted io n beam, ion cooling in the trap, and other technical and physics issue s.