The LPCTrap facility:: A novel transparent Paul trap for high-precision experiments

A trap system has been built to perform high-precision beta-decay experiments. The system is coupled to the low-energy beam line of the SPIRAL source at GANIL. The continuous ion beam from SPIRAL with energies between 10 and 20 keV is slowed down by means of a buffer-gas-filled RFQ trap and ejected thereafter as short ion bunches into a novel transparent Paul trap. Two pulsed cavities located downstream from the RFQ reduce the energy of the ion bunch down to about a hundred eV for an efficient capture in the Paul trap. We describe here the complete system along with the first results obtained with stable He-4(+), Cl-35(+) and Ar-36,40(+) ions from the SPIRAL ECR source. An overall efficiency of 8.7(8) x 10(-4) is achieved for He-4(+) ions under specific conditions. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.