Finally, computer-automated systems built by Powell and Joosten were installed to track and route the pressurized gas mixed with the isotopes from the medical cyclotron to the cold trap feeding the ion source. Transfer time is approximately 20 seconds. In continous mode, there's plenty of time. During our first full test on August 1, it was impressive to see the beam start at low intensity and then grow progressively stronger. At a hundred million atoms per second on target, the carbon-11 beam is less intense than stable beams, but it's two or three orders of magnitude stronger than the radioactive beams other U.S. facilities have achieved.
Radioactive beams open many experimental possibilities in addition to astrophysics.
In some interactions with targets, radioactive beams are expected to have a significant advantage over stable beams in producing desired isotopes, with fewer unwanted species to clutter the mix of reaction products. A survey of reaction yields is thus a priority. Because a mirror pair's members have similar nuclear structure, theorists have suggested that unusual resonance scattering effects may occur in their interaction. With proton energies up to 30 MeV, we could make several dozens of short-lived radioactive species, up to an atomic mass number of about 80. And with a transfer line only a tenth as long, we could deliver these to the ion source very quickly.