• P. Gerhard, W.A. Barth, L.A. Dahl, A. Orzhekhovskaya, K. Tinschert, W. Vinzenz, H. Vormann, S.G. Yaramyshev
  GSI, Darmstadt
• A. Schempp, M. Vossberg
  IAP, Frankfurt am Main

The super heavy el­e­ment re­search is one of the out­stand­ing pro­jects at GSI. At SHIP* six new el­e­ments have been dis­cov­ered; more­over, nu­cle­ar chem­i­cal ex­per­i­ments with trans­ac­tinides were re­cent­ly per­formed at TASCA**. This ex­per­i­men­tal pro­gram strong­ly ben­e­fits from high av­er­age beam in­ten­si­ties. In the past beam cur­rents were raised sig­nif­i­cant­ly by a num­ber of im­prove­ments. The pre­sent up­grade pro­gram com­pris­es the in­stal­la­tion of a su­per­con­duct­ing (sc) 28 GHz ECR ion source, a new fron­tend (low en­er­gy beam trans­port and RFQ), and, in the long term, an sc cw Linac. For the short term, the new RFQ will raise the duty fac­tor by a fac­tor of two (50%), lim­it­ed by the fol­low­ing ac­cel­er­a­tor only. This bot­tle­neck will be re­solved by the ap­plied cw Linac. Beam tests with a newly de­vel­oped sc CH cav­i­ty are sched­uled for 2012. The setup of the RFQ as the major up­grade of the 20 year old HLI*** is in progress, the com­mis­sion­ing will be fin­ished in March 2010. Be­sides a high­er duty fac­tor, im­proved lon­gi­tu­di­nal beam qual­i­ty and trans­mis­sion are ex­pect­ed. This paper re­ports on the chal­leng­ing rf and beam com­mis­sion­ing.

* Separator for Heavy Ion Reaction Products
** TransActinide Separator and Chemistry Apparatus
*** High charge state injector, a part the UNILAC