The trap design of PENTATRAP

TL;DR

This paper presents the design and analytical modeling of a novel five-trap Penning trap tower for high-precision mass spectrometry of highly charged ions, addressing systematic effects and anharmonicities.

Contribution

The paper introduces a new trap tower design with an analytical potential expression, optimizing for ultra high-precision measurements and systematic effect mitigation.

Findings

Analytical expression for electrostatic potential derived

Design minimizes anharmonicities for high-precision measurements

Estimated limits due to anharmonic shifts at large amplitudes

Abstract

A novel Penning trap tower consisting of five compensated cylindrical Penning traps is developed for the PENTATRAP mass spectrometer at the Max-Planck-Institut f\"ur Kernphysik in Heidelberg, Germany. An analytical expression for the electrostatic potential inside the trap tower is derived to calculate standard Penning trap properties like the compensation of anharmonicities and an orthogonal geometry of the trap electrodes. Since the PENTATRAP project described in the preceding article aims for ultra high-precision mass-ratio measurements of highly charged ions up to uranium, systematic effects for highly charged ions inside the trap tower are considered for the design process as well. Finally, a limit due to remaining anharmonic shifts at large amplitudes is estimated for the resulting geometry, which is important for phase-sensitive measurements of the reduced cyclotron frequency of the ions.