High brilliance beam investigations at the universal linear accelerator

The mom than 45-year-old GSI-UNILAC (universal linear accelerator) as well as the heavy ion synchrotron SIS18 will serve as a high-current heavy ion injector for the new Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) synchrotron SIS100. UNILAC will serve together with the SIS18 as FAIR injector for short intense pulse operation; the newly developed heavy ion linac Helmholtz linear accelerator shall deliver cw beams, still required for the comprehensive research program at GSI. In the context of an advanced machine investigation program in combination with the ongoing UNILAC upgrade program, a dedicated beam investigation campaign has been carried out in order to characterize front-to-end highcurrent medium and heavy ion beam behavior at GSI-UNILAC. A very high beam brilliance at the end of transfer line from UNILAC to SIS18 was achieved recently for medium heavy ion beams in a machine experiment campaign. This is an important step paving the way to fulfill the FAIR heavy ion high-intensity beam requirements. Results of high-current uranium beam measurements applying the novel technique of pulsed hydrogen gas stripping (at 1.4 MeV /u) will be presented as well.