Laser cooling of heavy ion beams at high energies and intensities

Doppler laser cooling describes the decrease in temperature of an ion ensemble by the resonant interaction with laser light. In the past the principle of laser cooling was investigated and verified in storage rings at low beam intensities in the low energy regime. Within the FAIR project laser cooling should be applied to intense ion bunches at relativistic energies. Laser cooling results in a further increase of the longitudinal phase space density and in non-Gaussian longitudinal beam profiles. In order to ensure stable operation and optimize the cooling process, the interplay of the laser force and intensity effects has to be studied numerically. The presentation discusses the cooling process with a continuous wave as well as a pulsed laser system. The strength of the cooling force is evaluated in order to estimate the efficiency of laser cooling at relativistic ion energies