Commissioning of the RFQ Cooler and Buncher for St. Benedict*

Unique insight into the electroweak part of the Standard Model can be found through precision measurements of nuclear beta decays. Non-unitarity of the Cabibo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) quark mixing matrix would be indicative of physics beyond the Standard Model. Measurements of the beta-neutrino angular correlation parameter for superallowed mixed mirror beta decays can be used to probe the unitarity of this matrix. The Superallowed Transition Beta-Neutrino Decay Ion Coincidence Trap (St. Benedict) is currently under construction at the Nuclear Science Laboratory (NSL) at the University of Notre Dame to improve the accuracy of the V_ud CKM matrix element. St. Benedict is comprised of several beam manipulating devices including a gas catcher, radiofrequency carpet, radiofrequency quadrupole (RFQ) cooler and buncher, and a measurement Paul trap. In order to make measurements at the needed precision, a bunch of ions with a well defined energy and emittance are required. To this effect, an RFQ cooler and buncher, following the design of such a device used for the NSCL EBIT, is currently being commissioned. The off-line commissioning setup consists of a thermionic emission source of potassium ions which sends beam through the RFQ where it is bunched and subsequently measured on a micro channel plate detector. With this system we are able to transport DC beam with 80% efficiency and obtain bunches with an 80 ns full-width-half-maximum. Progress on the off-line commissioning of the radiofrequency cooler and buncher will be presented.