Electron cooling experiments at the ESR

The properties of electron cooled beams of highly charged ions have been studied at the ESR. New experiments using a beam scraper to determine the transverse beam size provide the beam parameters in the intrabeam scattering dominated intensity regime, but also at very low intensity when the ion beam enters into an ultra-cold state. Extremely low values of longitudinal and transverse beam temperature on the order of meV were achieved for less than 1000 stored ions. An experiment with bunched ultra-cold beam showed a limit of the line density which agrees with the one observed for coasting beams. Cooling of decelerated ions at a minimum energy of 3 MeV/u has been demonstrated recently.