Molecular desorption of stainless steel vacuum chambers irradiated with 42 MeV/u lead ions

In preparation for the heavy ion program of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, accumulation and cooling tests with lead ion beams have been performed in the Low Energy Antiproton Ring. These tests have revealed that due to the unexpected large outgassing of the vacuum system, the dynamic pressure of the ring could not be maintained low enough to reach the required beam intensities. To determine the actions necessary to lower the dynamic pressure rise, an experimental program has been initiated for measuring the molecular desorption yields of stainless steel vacuum chambers by the impact of 4.2 MeV/u lead ions with the charge states +27 and +53. The test chambers were exposed either at grazing or at perpendicular incidence. Different surface treatments (glow discharges, nonevaporable getter coating) are reported in terms of the molecular desorption yields for H/sub 2 /, CH/sub 4/, CO, Ar, and CO/sub 2/. (16 refs)