Studying exotic atoms and nuclei with low-energy antiprotons
Prof. Dr. Eberhard Widmann (Austrian Academy of Sciences, Wien)

The Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research FAIR at Darmstadt [1] will provide antiproton beams of intensities that are two orders of magnitude higher than currently available. Within the foreseen scheme, antiprotons can be decelerated to 30 MeV. The low-energy antiproton community has formed a users group to make use of this opportunity to create a next-generation low-energy antiproton facility called FLAIR. A letter of intent [2] and subsequent technical proposal [3] have been submitted for a new facility that goes far beyond the current Antiproton Decelerator at CERN by providing cooled antiproton beams using two storage rings of 300 keV and 20 keV minimum energy. The availability of low-emittance beams at these low energies will greatly enhance the density of antiprotons stopped in dilute gases or ion traps for precision spectroscopy. FLAIR will also provide slow extracted (i.e. continuous) beams of an-tiprotons, thereby enabling nuclear and particle physics type experiments which need coinci-dence techniques. A further opportunity will be the simultaneous availability of unstable nuclei at low energies, making it possible to use antiprotons as hadronic probes for nuclear structure by determining neutron halos or skins. An overview on the technical capabilities and experi-mental program of FLAIR will be given.