The VERA heavy ion program-status and prospects.

Since the start of VERA operation in 1996 the long term goal has been to perform AMS up to the heaviest radionuclides. Last fall a major step forward was made with the installation of movable slits which float up to 13 kV inside the injector bouncer chamber. The injector mass resolution has been measured to be ≈900 at 80% transmission. Recently, we started to investigate isotopes of Pb, U, and Pu, with the goal to measure the radionuclides [sup 210]Pb (22 y), [sup 236]U (23 My), and [sup 244]Pu (81 My). The detection is performed with a two-foil TOF system (450 ps resolution) followed by a Bragg ionization chamber. In addition we report on our first studies of doubly negative cluster ions, like (C[sup 10])[sup 2-]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]