PUMA, antiProton Unstable Matter Annihilation, is a nuclear-physics experiment at CERN aiming at probing the surface properties of stable and rare isotopes by use of low-energy antiprotons. Low-energy antiprotons offer a very unique sensitivity to the neutron and proton densities at the annihilation site, i.e. in the tail of the nuclear density. Today, no facility provides a collider of low-energy radioactive ions and low-energy antiprotons: while not being a collider experiment, PUMA aims at transporting one billion antiprotons from ELENA, the Extra-Low-ENergy Antiproton ring, to ISOLDE, the rare-isotope beam facility of CERN. PUMA will enable the capture of low-energy antiprotons by short-lived nuclei and the measurement of the emitted radiations. In this way, PUMA will give access to the so-far largely unexplored isospin composition of the nuclear-radial-density tail of radioactive nuclei. The motivations, concept and current status of the PUMA experiment are presented.

The steering program YASP was introduced in the LEIR injection as well as the extraction lines in 2016 to correct the trajectories with well-known model based correction algorithms such as MICADO or SVD. In addition a YASP configuration was prepared to correct the extraction line together with the first turn of the PS. In this way the injection oscillations can be corrected while keeping the trajectory reasonable in the PS injection line.

As the AD programme now faces a renewed lease of life following the start of the ELENA project, it is essential to ensure best possible reliability and performance for the next 20 years or so. The AD machine, which was started in 1999, is based on the Antiproton Collector (AC) ring of the Antiproton Accumulator Complex (AAC) which in turn was constructed in the mid-80:ies. Since most of the major AD components were retained from the AC, we now have a significant amount of 30-year old equipment to deal with.LEIR is in a similar situation having started life in the 80s, supplying antiproton beams at various energies for the PS physics programme. After having been transformed into a heavy ion accumulator in 2004 and subsequently used in operation, some consolidation needs have become apparent. LEIR is expected to keep delivering heavy ions to the North Area and to the LHC until 2035, and possibly light ions to a new biology research facility in the South Hall.A consolidation programme is underway for both machines and here we will discuss the main aspects of ongoing and planned activities from an operational point of view.

Low energy antiprotons are available for physics experiments at CERN since the 1980s and have been used by a large variety of experiments. The Low Energy Antiproton Ring LEAR has been constructed as a complementary use of antiprotons available at that time for high energy physics and delivered beam to experiments mainly using slow extraction. After completion of LEAR exploitation, the Antiproton Decelerator (AD) was constructed (adaptation of the existing Antiproton Collector, AC) to allow for a simpler low energy antiproton scheme (only one accelerator operated with Antiprotons) with fast extraction well suited for trap experiments. The Extra Low ENergy Antiproton ring ELENA is a small synchrotron presently constructed to further decelerate antiprotons from the AD in a controlled manner, and to reduce emittances with the help of an electron cooler to improve the capture efficiencies of existing experiments and allow for additional ones.

To produce dense pbar beams at very low energies (100-200 keV), a small decelerator ring could be built and installed between the existing AD ring and the experimental area. Phase-space blowup during deceleration would be compensated by electron cooling in order to obtain final emittances comparable to the 5MeV beam presently delivered by the AD. This report describes preliminary machine parameters and layout of ELENA and also gives an approximate estimate of cost and manpower needs.

The LHC will, in addition to proton runs, be operated with Pb ions and provide collisions at energies of 5.5 TeV per nucleon pair, i.e. more than 1.1 PeV per event, to experiments. The transformation of CERN’s ion injector complex (Linac3-LEIR-PS-SPS) to allow collision of ions in LHC in 2008 is well under way. The status of these modifications and the latest results of commissioning will be presented. The remaining challenges are reviewed.

The Low Energy Ion Ring (LEIR) is a central piece for LHC ion operation at CERN, transforming long Linac3 pulses into high density bunches needed for LHC. The first phase of LEIR commissioning successfully attained its goal of providing the so-called "early ion beam" (one bunch of 2.25 108 Lead ions) needed for the first LHC ion runs with reduced luminosity. Studies in view of generating the beam needed for nominal ion operation (2 bunches of 4.5 108 ions in LEIR) were carried out in parallel with the setting-up of the early beam in the accelerators further downstream in the LHC injector chain. The main characteristics of the machine using a new state of the art electron cooler are discussed together with the latest results.

To replace an aging multiplexed observation system of about 1500 analog signals originating in 5 machines of the CERN PS Complex a VXI system consisting of various oscilloscope and multiplexer modules housed in local crates has been developed. The crates are linked together via an Ethernet cable and run under the VxWorks operating system. An on-line Oracle database allows for reference signals and observation settings to be saved and restored. The signals are displayed within one hundred milliseconds after their capture on virtual oscilloscopes on DEC workstations; these oscilloscopes include all the usual features plus the specific controls related to the CERN context. Two systems accessing about a hundred signals, were delivered in March 1993 as a part of the PS-SL controls rejuvenation project. This paper will describe the hardware and software structure, the current and expected performances as well as costs and forecasts.

The Low Energy Ion Ring (LEIR) is a central piece for LHC ion operation at CERN, transforming long Linac3 pulses into high density bunches needed for LHC. The first phase of LEIR commissioning successfully attained its goal of providing the so-called “early ion beam” (one bunch of 2.25 10 8 Lead ions) needed for the first LHC ion runs with reduced luminosity. Studies in view of generating the beam needed for nominal ion operation (2 bunches of 4.5 10 8 ions in LEIR) were carried out in parallel with the setting-up of the early beam in the accelerators further downstream in the LHC injector chain. The main characteristics of the machine using a new state of the art electron cooler are discussed together with the latest results.