Eur. Phys. J. Special Topics 225, 797-882 (2016)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2016-02643-6

Review

Physics book: CRYRING@ESR

¹ GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, 64291 Darmstadt, Germany
² Institute of Nuclear Physics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia
³ Institut für Atom- und Molekülphysik, Justus-Liebig-Universität, 35392 Gießen, Germany
⁴ Physik Department E12, Technische Universität München, 85748 Garching, Germany
⁵ Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
⁶ Institute for Physics, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany
⁷ I. Physikalisches Institut, Justus-Liebig-Universität, 35392 Gießen, Germany
⁸ Institute of Theoretical Physics, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western Australia
⁹ School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Edinburg EH9 3JZ, UK
¹⁰ Institute of Physics and CINSaT, University of Kassel, 34132 Kassel, Germany
¹¹ Fysikum, Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
¹² Kirchhoff-Institut für Physik, Universität Heidelberg, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
¹³ Friedrich Schiller Universität Jena, 07737 Jena, Germany
¹⁴ Helmholtz-Institut Jena, 07743 Jena, Germany
¹⁵ Laboratoire Kastler Brossel, École Normale Supérieure, CNRS, Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris 6, 75252 Paris Cedex 05, France
¹⁶ Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-Universität, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
¹⁷ Department of Nuclear Physics, RSPE, Australian National University, Acton, ACT 2601, Australia
¹⁸ Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China
¹⁹ Graduate School of Engineering, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima 739-8527, Japan
²⁰ ExtreMe Matter Institut EMMI, 64291 Darmstadt, Germany
²¹ Department of Physics, Chalmers University of Technology, 412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden
²² Institut für Kernphysik, Universität Darmstadt, 64289 Darmstadt, Germany
²³ Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA 94551, USA
²⁴ Physics Dept. and LAMOR, Missouri University of Science & Technology, Rolla, MO 65409, USA
²⁵ Department of Physics, Sankt Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg 198504, Russia
²⁶ Physikalisches Institut, Universität Heidelberg, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
²⁷ Astronomisches Institut, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 44780 Bochum, Germany
²⁸ Inst. des NanoSciences de Paris, CNRS UMR7588 and UMPC-Paris 6, 75015 Paris, France
²⁹ Department of Physics, University of Surrey, Guildford, GU2 7XH, UK

Received: 29 April 2016
Revised: 17 June 2016
Published online: 12 September 2016

Abstract

The exploration of the unique properties of stored and cooled beams of highly-charged ions as provided by heavy-ion storage rings has opened novel and fascinating research opportunities in the realm of atomic and nuclear physics research. Since the late 1980s, pioneering work has been performed at the CRYRING at Stockholm (Abrahamsson et al. 1993) and at the Test Storage Ring (TSR) at Heidelberg (Baumann et al. 1988). For the heaviest ions in the highest charge-states, a real quantum jump was achieved in the early 1990s by the commissioning of the Experimental Storage Ring (ESR) at GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung (GSI) in Darmstadt (Franzke 1987) where challenging experiments on the electron dynamics in the strong field regime as well as nuclear physics studies on exotic nuclei and at the borderline to atomic physics were performed. Meanwhile also at Lanzhou a heavy-ion storage ring has been taken in operation, exploiting the unique research opportunities in particular for medium-heavy ions and exotic nuclei (Xia et al. 2002).