ANL, Argonne, USA
CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, Illlinois, USA
ATLAS is now the only US DOE National User Facility for low-energy heavy-ion stable beams. With the recent commissioning of the Californium Rare Isotope Breeder Upgrade (CARIBU), ATLAS is now also used to accelerate radioactive beams. The demand for both stable and radioactive beam time is already exceeding two to three times the 5500 hours delivered by ATLAS every year. The time structure of the EBIS charge breeder to be installed next year for CARIBU beams is such that only 3% of the ATLAS duty cycle will be used for radioactive beams. Being a CW machine, 97% of the ATLAS cycle will be available for the injection and acceleration of stable beams without retuning. This simultaneous acceleration is possible for stable and radioactive beams with charge-to-mass ratios within 3%. We have developed a strategic plan to upgrade ATLAS for this purpose over the next few years, where two to three beams could be delivered simultaneously to different experimental areas. The upgrade concept will be presented and discussed along with the recent studies and developments done in this direction.
