HEAVY ION INJECTOR FOR THE FAIR-ACCELERATOR COMPLEX

The present GSI-accelerator complex, consisting of the linear accelerator UNILAC and the heavy ion synchrotron SIS 18, is foreseen to serve as an U28+-injector for up to 1012 particles/s for the future Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) at Darmstadt. In 2003 and 2004 different hardware measures and careful fine tuning in all sections of the UNILAC resulted in an increase of the beam intensity to 9.5⋅1010 U27+-ions per 100 μs or 1.5⋅1010 U73+-ions per 100 μs (max. pulse beam power of 0.5 MW). In addition a dedicated upgrade program for the UNILAC will be performed until 2009. It is intended to fill the SIS 18 up to the space charge limit of 2.7⋅1011 U28+-ions per cycle. The UNILAC serving as a high duty factor heavy ion linac for physics experiments is in operation since more than 30 years. After completion of the FAIR complex in 2015 the running time for the accelerator facility will be 20 years at least, while the UNILAC will then be in operation for more than 60 years. Different proposals for a new advanced short pulse, heavy ion, high intensity, high energy linac, substituting the UNILAC as a synchrotron injector, will be discussed. This new "High Energy-UNILAC " has to meet the advanced FAIR requirements, will allow for complete multi-ion-operation, and should provide for reliable beam operation in the future. We acknowledge the support of the European Community-Research Infrastructure Activity under the FP6 “Structuring the Europea