Present status of the KISS project.

The ultimate scientific goal of the experimental project with KEK Isotope Separation System (KISS) is to study the decay properties of unknown neutron-rich isotopes having the neutron magic number, N=126, for the astrophysical interest. These isotopes will be produced through the multi-nucleon transfer reactions of neutron-rich heavy-ion beams. Produced activities will be separated and measured by the KISS, which has been constructed at RIKEN. It consists of the argon gas-cell system for stopping and neutralizing the single atoms of nuclear reaction products, the laser system for the laser resonant ionization, and the mass-separator system followed by the decay measurement stations. We have succeeded to extract ions of iron and nickel by the resonant laser ionization at the KISS performance test of the off-line mode. Mass resolving power is observed to be around 900 as expected by the ion-optical calculation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]