Initial operation of MARS

The major construction of a new recoil spectrometer, MARS, was completed during the early fall of '92. MARS, a momentum achromat recoil spectrometer, uses a novel optical design that makes it ideal for studying inverse kinematics reactions at 0 degrees. Since early fall, the authors have been studying the ion optics of MARS using heavy ion beams from the Texas A ampersand M University K500 superconducting cyclotron. Initial studies have focused on using MARS to do particle-γ spectroscopy with inverse kinematics reactions. The first such reaction studied is p(58Ni, 57Cu)2n to search for the first excited state in 57Cu. They also are carrying out studies to look at the β-decay of 57Cu. A brief presentation of the ion optics and capabilities of MARS is given. This is followed by a discussion of the results obtained to date