Progress on the N=126 factory at Argonne National Laboratory*

Multi-nucleon transfer (MNT) reactions between two heavy ions offer a unique method of producing heavy, neutron-rich nuclei that cannot be effectively accessed using traditional fragmentation or fission production techniques. The N=126 factory currently under construction at Argonne National Laboratory's ATLAS facility will make use of these reactions to study, for example, the neutron-rich nuclei near the N=126 shell closure critical for understanding the astrophysical r-process and the formation of the A~195 abundance peak. Due to the wide angular distribution of MNT reaction products, a large-volume gas catcher will be used to convert these into a continuous low-energy beam. This beam will undergo preliminary separation in a magnetic dipole of resolving power R~10³ before passing through an RFQ cooler-buncher and MR-TOF system of resolving power R>10⁵, sufficient to suppress isobaric contaminants. These isotopically separated, bunched low energy beams will then be available for experimental systems at ATLAS such as the CPT mass spectrometer for precision mass measurements. The status of the facility under construction will be presented.