Resonant pickups for non-destructive single-particle detection in heavy-ion storage rings and first experimental results

Nuclear astrophysics studies on highly charged radionuclides benefit from accelerator facilities with storage rings, where exotic nuclides produced with small yields can be efficiently investigated. Currently there are two accelerator facilities capable of storing highly charged heavy ions, GSI in Darmstadt and IMP in Lanzhou. Non-destructive detection methods are often used for in-flight measurements based on frequency analysis. The sensitivity of such detection systems are of primary importance specially when number of stored ions is small. Furthermore, since the exotic nuclides of interest are as a rule short-lived, the detectors must be fast. One common form of such detectors are parallel plate SCHOTTKY monitors, on which particles induce a mirror charge at each passage. This method has been successfully used at ESR experimental storage ring of GSI since 1991. In this work we describe a new resonant SCHOTTKY pickup operating as a high sensitive cavity current monitor which was mounted and commissioned in the ESR early 2010. It was successfully used in several storage ring experiments. A very similar pickup was mounted in CSRe at IMP Lanzhou in 2011. First in-ring tests have been performed and new experimental results are pending. The spectral analysis of acquired signals by the new detector has enabled a broad range of new physics experiments. The theory of operation and first experimental results and future perspectives are presented in this thesis.