Merged-beams tools for the study of ultra-cold reactions

Here we will briefly describe a new ion storage device currently under construction at Stockholm University, Sweden. This device uses purely electrostatic focussing and deflection elements and allows ion beams of opposite charge to be confined under extreme high vacuum and cryogenic conditions in separate “rings” and then merged over a common straight section. This Double ElectroStatic Ion Ring ExpEriment (DESIREE) apparatus allows studies of interactions between cations and anions at low and well-defined centre-of-mass energies, and we will finish the paper by discussing an example of such potential research. A complete technical review of this facility has been recently published [1].