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The 5th International Conference on Nuclear Physics at Storage Rings, STORI '02, was held in Uppsala, June 16–20, 2002. It was organized jointly by The Svedberg Laboratory and the Department of Radiation Sciences, Uppsala University. The conference was the fifth in a series that started in 1991 at Lund and was continued in 1994 at St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1996 at Bernkastel-Kues, Germany, and in 1999 at Bloomington, IN, USA.

The STORI '02 conference brought together physicists from a diverse international research community connected by the common technology of storage rings reviewing the topics of current interest in nuclear physics research with stored, cooled ion beams and electron beams. Specifically, the scientific programme of STORI '02 focused on new results from a wide variety of experimental projects at existing stored-beam facilities, on progress in associated theoretical issues, and on discussions of new facilities and experimental techniques. The STORI '02 conference also included a number of review talks on physics in neighbouring fields, e.g., atomic physics at storage rings, physics with stored particles in ion traps, crystalline ion beams.

Of particular interest was the presentation of the proposed International Accelerator Facility for Beams of Ions and Antiprotons at GSI, Darmstadt. The accelerator complex includes, e.g., a new experimental storage ring, NESR, with electron–heavy-ion collider for structure research on unstable nuclei and a high-energy storage ring, HESR, intended for antiprotons up to 14 GeV. The experimental programmes foreseen for these storage rings will address a wide range of important issues in nuclear and particle physics, and keep the field in the physics front line for a long time.

The conference programme was composed of six plenary sessions and a poster session. The meeting was attended by 77 registered participants from 11 countries. The presentations included 12 invited review talks, 27 oral contributions and seven posters. These proceedings contain the written versions of most of the presented talks and posters. They have been slightly regrouped as compared to the order of presentation in the conference program in order to group together the papers according to subject, e.g., the poster papers have been placed within the corresponding subject block.

We are very grateful to the members of the International Advisory Committee for the active and expert selection of topics and invited speakers. The conference participants giving presentations in the form of invited talks, oral and poster contributions are particularly thanked for their efforts in keeping the high standards of the conference presentations and of the written versions.

We would like to thank the members of the Local Organizing Committee for their contributions in preparing and running the conference; special thanks are due to Lars Westerberg for arranging the boat trip to Skokloster and the conference dinner at the Linné Garden. We appreciate also very much the support in different aspects of the conference given by Solveig Eriksson, Elin Hellbeck, Gun Lundin, Sofie Wessman and Catharina Åsbjörk.

The conference was sponsored by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences through its Nobel Institute for Physics, the Swedish Research Council, the Wenner–Gren Foundations, Uppsala University and the City of Uppsala. Their generous financial support made the conference possible and successful.

It was decided to arrange the next STORI conference at Jülich, Germany in 2005. It will be organized by IKP, FZ Jülich and headed by Hans Ströher.

Two-pion production reactions in proton-proton collisions have been studied using the PROMICE/WASA detector and an internal cluster gas-jet target at the CELSIUS storage ring in Uppsala. The total cross sections for the pp → ppπ⁺π^-, pp → ppπ⁰π⁰ and the pp → pnπ⁰π⁺ reactions are presented at beam energies ranging from 650 to 775 MeV. An isospin analysis of the amplitudes involved in these three reactions indicates that the excitation of the N*(1440) followed by direct two pion emission can be the most important amplitude when allowed. However, large contributions from other production mechanisms must also be prevalent to explain the large pp → pnπ⁰π⁺ cross section. The data are compared to an extensive model including non-resonant as well as resonant production via N* and Δ excitation.

The technical issues are summarized that arise in hadron storage ring experiments with a polarized beam and a polarized internal target. This is followed by a synopsis of polarization experiments in storage rings.

A kinematically complete study of the pd → (pp)_sn reaction with forward emission of an S-wave proton pair (pp)_s has been performed at six beam energies 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, 0.95, 1.35 and 1.9 GeV. The experiment was carried out at the ANKE spectrometer installed at the internal beam of the proton synchrotron COSY (Jülich). The 3-momenta of both final state protons have been measured and events with a relative proton energy less than 3 MeV were selected as ¹S₀ diprotons. The differential cross sections of such pair production averaged over the c.m. polar angle of the total momentum of the pair in the range 0°–8.1° have been obtained. A comparison of the result with a theoretical model based on the mechanism of pd-backward elastic scattering is described as well.

The CELSIUS/WASA experiment is now finishing its commissioning phase and has started regular data taking in autumn 2001. Results from a first analysis of data samples from an experimental run at a beam energy of T_p = 1360 MeV in September 2001 are presented. The results show the ability to tag π⁰ and η production events. For 2π⁰ production a large data sample exists. The 2π⁰ and 3π⁰ production processes will be important sources of background for the η decays. They have until now been poorly measured, if at all, at this energy. The decay η → γγ will be used for normalization of all other η decays and the eta; → 3π⁰ decay will test the light quark mass ratio predicted by Chiral Perturbation Theory.

The Frascati e⁺e^- collider, DAΦNE, operates at a center of mass energy of ~1020 MeV, the mass of the ϕ-meson. Three detectors have been realized, KLOE, DEAR, and FINUDA. The first two are presently collecting data in the two DAΦNE interaction regions (IR), while the third is being assembled in its pit inside the DAΦNE hall and will take data in the IR occupied by DEAR. The KLOE experiment, which is designed to measure CP and CPT violation parameters in the K_SK_L system, has collected so far ~300 pb^-1. Measurements obtained using the year 2000 data sample will be presented, which are focussed on K_S physics and ϕ radiative decays. The DEAR experiment aims at studying the scattering lengths of the kaon-nucleon system, through a precise measurement of the Kα line shifts in kaonic hydrogen and kaonic deuterium. With 2001 and 2002 data-taking periods the DEAR collaboration has demonstrated the capability of creating and detecting exotic atoms using the kaon flux from DAΦNE, by measuring the x-ray spectrum of kaonic nitrogen. The present status and perspectives of the DEAR experiment will be discussed. A brief report will be given at the end on the FINUDA physics program, aiming at the study of the Λ-hypernuclei levels and lifetimes.

Meson production at threshold in the hadron-hadron interaction began in the fifties when sufficient energies of accelerated protons were available. A strong interdependence between developments in accelerator physics, detector performance and theoretical understanding led to a unique vivid field of physics. With the advent of the new cooler rings the field entered a new domain of precision.

The analysis of these new data permits a more fundamental consideration and a quantitative comparison of the production processes for different mesons in the few-body final states. The interpretation of the data takes advantage of the fact that production reactions close to threshold are characterized by only a few degrees of freedom between a well defined combination of initial and exit channels. Deviations from predictions of one-meson-exchange models are indications of new physics. In future, precision data on differential cross sections, isospin and spin observables will test theoretical models.

In a series of measurements with the ANKE spectrometer at COSY-Jülich, the production of K⁺-mesons in pA (A = C, Cu, Ag and Au) collisions in a wide range of beam energies, T_p = 1.0 ... 2.3 GeV, has been investigated. Double differential cross sections d²σ/dΩdp have been evaluated. The strong suppression in the ratios of K⁺ production on copper, silver and gold targets to that on carbon observed for p_K < 200–250 MeV/c may be ascribed to a combination of Coulomb and nuclear repulsion in the K⁺A system. Our data are consistent with a K⁺A nuclear potential of V_K⁰ ≈ 20 MeV at low kaon momenta and normal nuclear density. First momentum spectra of protons and deuterons measured in coincidence with the K⁺-mesons have been obtained at T_p = 1.2 GeV. These data supply direct evidence for the two-step reaction mechanism, with formation of intermediate pions, leading to kaon production.

At the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) a precision experiment of the muon magnetic anomaly a_μ in a magnetic storage ring is on its way. Measurements carried out on positive muons in 1999 have resulted in a_μ⁺ = 11,659,202(14)(6) × 10^-10 (1.3 ppm). A difference between this value and the theoretical value at the time of publication has lead to a careful re-evaluation of all contributions. At present there are several independent theoretical values which are based on standard theory. They agree with each other and are within one to two standard deviations of the above value. The goal of the experiment is a precision of 0.35 ppm. About eight times more data are being analyzed and additional data taking is foreseen. Eventual agreement with experiment would allow to put stringent limits on parameters in theoretical approaches beyond the standard model. Disagreement could indicate new physics.

Differential cross sections for the neutron-proton bremsstrahlung (np → npγ) and pion production (np → npπ⁰ and np → ppπ^-) processes have been measured for the first time at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center. A pulsed neutron beam, produced by 800 MeV protons incident on a tungsten spallation target, bombarded a liquid hydrogen target. The outgoing neutrons and protons (in the first two reactions) or pairs of protons (in the third reaction) were observed in coincidence in organic liquid or plastic and CsI(pure) detectors at angles between 12° and 32° on opposite sides of the beam. For each pair of nucleon angles, the angular distribution of the unobserved photons or pions was deduced from the data.

We report on a search for deeply bound pionic states of xenon produced in the Xe_nat.(d,³He)Xe_π-bound reaction at E_d = 500 MeV. In the ³He energy spectrum two peaks are observed corresponding to the production of pionic atoms in the 1s state.

Two experiments on the production of the a₀⁺(980)-resonance have been performed at the COoler SYnchrotron COSY Jülich. The reactions pp → dK⁺X and pp → dπ⁺X have been measured simultaneously at beam energies of T_p = 2.65 GeV and T_p = 2.83 GeV corresponding to excess energies 46 MeV and 103 MeV above the K⁺⁰ threshold. The coincident dK⁺(dπ⁺) pairs were detected with the magnetic spectrometer ANKE and events with m_X = m^₀(m_η) were identified. For the reaction pp → dK⁺⁰ a total cross section of about 50 nb has been deduced from the data at T_p = 2.65 GeV. The invariant mass distribution of the K⁺⁰ pairs is discussed in terms of a₀⁺(980)-resonance production.

The RHIC collider, the experiments and some selected results from the first round of running are presented and discussed. The LHC collider and the ALICE experiment, which are under construction, are also reviewed and discussed in this paper.

The ESR storage ring has been designed for high resolution and high precision experiments with highly charged ions, both stable and radioactive species. Stochastic and electron cooling provide fast and powerful cooling for the preparation of cold ion beams. For small ion beam intensities beams of unprecedented quality can be obtained by electron cooling. The internal gas jet target allows operation with a variety of gases. The highly charged ions can be decelerated to reduce the resolution limitation originating from Doppler effects. The decelerated ions are either used for internal experiments or extracted to a fixed target area with an ultraslow extraction mode. For the determination of the masses of radioactive nuclei two methods have been developed. Schottky mass spectrometry of cooled ions with nuclear lifetimes of the order of seconds or longer allows mass measurements by determination of the revolution frequency from the Schottky noise with a mass resolution of 1 ppm. Tuning of the focusing structure of the storage ring to the transition energy of 344 MeV/u is applied to measure the masses of short–lived nuclei by a time of flight method.

In the present experiment 250A MeV ¹⁷O ions were inelastically scattered from xenon and argon in the cluster-jet target of the CELSIUS storage ring. The magnetic lattice of the ring is such that the quadrant following the target can be used as a magnetic spectrometer with an acceptance cone of ±0.6°, centred at 0°. A focal plane telescope, placed in the injection straight section, determined the excitation energy of the residual target nuclei. Data were taken for excitation energies between 15 and 35 MeV. The neutron decay was studied by the EDEN detector array positioned around the target, covering an angular range of 7–110°.

In order to investigate a previously observed forward peaked fast neutron component, significant improvements were made in measurements of neutron energy, angular resolution and coverage, as well as in the design of the focal plane telescope. Preliminary comparisons between data and statistical model calculations show an excess of fast neutrons. The forward peaking of the angular distribution for argon is, however, weaker than was indicated in a previous experiment on xenon.

The combination of the CELSIUS ring, operating in slow ramping mode, the cluster-jet target, the large multi-detector array CHICSi and additional internal and external detector systems for specific emission components in p–nucleus and nucleus–nucleus collisions is presented. This combination operates well under realistic experimental conditions. Scientific perspectives, commissioning and first experimental results are discussed in this talk.

The projectile fragmentation wall (Budzanowski A et al 2002 Nucl. Instrum. Meth. A 482 528) (PFW) is a part of a bigger detection system comprising of the CHICSi detector (Jakobsson B 1999 Nucl. Phys. News Int.9 (2) 22, Siwek A 1999 Nucl. Phys. A 654 2695) and a recoil detectors array (Kuznetsov A V et al 2000 Nucl. Instrum. Meth. A 452 525). The system is designed to register products of proton- and heavy ion-induced reactions at the energies 50–450 MeV/nucleon (see Bo Jakobsson's contribution to this conference). The aim of PFW is to register and identify projectile like fragments emitted in forward direction not covered by the CHICSi detector.

The pd → pdη reaction has been measured in a kinematically complete experiment at 927, 961, 1032, and 1096 MeV. The CM angular distributions are quite flat and distributions of the pd and pη invariant mass are close to that of phase space. However, the dη invariant mass shows significant structure in the first few MeV above threshold. This behaviour is similar to that observed in the energy variation of the pn → dη total cross section and is a signal of strong η-deuteron scattering which has been predicted in many theoretical models.

A stack of annular detectors made of high purity germanium was used to measure p + d → ³He + π⁰ and p + d → ³H + π⁺ differential and total cross sections at beam momenta from 750 MeV/c to 1050 MeV/c. The total cross sections are consistent with Δ-excitation. The differential data consist of two components. One corresponds to large momentum transfer from the projectile to the pion, the other to small momentum transfer. The former shows an independence of the slope as function of the momentum transfer t (scaling). The scale parameter is different for π⁺ and π⁰ emission which violates isospin symmetry. The second component which is almost isotropic is in agreement with isospin symmetry. It is approximately a quarter of the total yield in the Δ resonance region.

Production of K^±-mesons and antiprotons in heavy ion collisions is considered at energies below the production threshold in free nucleon–nucleon collisions. A simple nuclear fluid dynamics model was used to describe the experimental data. For strange particles and antiparticles the associative character of the production was taken into account, which reduced considerably the absolute value of the production cross-section. The medium effects for K^± were taken into account.

The hadronic shift ε_1s and broadening Γ_1s of the ground state in pionic hydrogen are measured with unprecedented precision. The expected accuracy is about 1% for broadening and 0.2% for shift. This is an improvement by an order of magnitude for broadening as compared to previous experiments and allows an accurate test of chiral perturbation theory.

Pions are stopped after being focused with a cyclotron trap and captured in a hydrogen target. The resulting x-rays are Bragg-reflected by a spherically bent crystal and detected in an array consisting of 6 CCD (charge coupled devices). The response function of the crystal is determined with an ECR-source. Recent results are presented. They indicate a pressure dependency for the broadening, but none for the shift.

We are investigating the halo nucleus ⁶He and its isobaric analogue state at 3.56 MeV excitation energy in ⁶Li in a series of pionic fusion experiments at the CELSIUS storage ring facility in Uppsala. The ⁴He(d, ⁶He)π⁺ reaction was studied 0.6–5.4 MeV above threshold in the centre-of-mass frame with a deuteron beam incident on a ⁴He gas target. The ⁶He ions were detected in a ΔE − E solid-state detector telescope inserted into the CELSIUS ring. Preliminary results are presented and compared to results for the analogue reaction producing ⁶Li*_3.56.

The WASA detector located at the CELSIUS storage ring of the The Svedberg Laboratory in Uppsala has recently finished its commissioning phase and is in full operation. An unique internal pellet-target system together with a detector covering a solid angle close to 4π steradians gives opportunities to study the rare decays of the π⁰ and the eta; meson in high-luminosity experiments. Another unique feature of the WASA setup is the thin-walled superconducting solenoid which provides the magnetic field for a mini drift chamber allowing highly efficient measurements of charged particles and minimal interference for particles entering the external electromagnetic calorimeter.

The WASA setup is presented in this report with an emphasis on the ability to detect charged decay products. The results from the first experiments and performance of the detector are discussed together with the initial physics programme for charged decays of η mesons.

A method of measurement of total fission cross sections and an experimental set-up are described. Experiments are carried out at the 1 GeV synchrocyclotron of PNPI with an updated beam system which allows one to obtain proton beams of various energies from 200 to 1000 MeV with intensity up to 10⁷ protons/s. The proposed measurement method is based on the registration in coincidence of both fission fragments by two parallel plate avalanche counters. The counters together with the target to be investigated are placed directly on the proton beam which provides a large solid angle acceptance. The beam monitoring is performed by scintillation telescopes. The first preliminary results on energy dependences of total fission cross sections of ²³⁸U, ²³⁵U, ²⁰⁹Bi and ^natPb are presented.

We have made an exploratory experiment studying the ³He + ³He → ⁶Li* + π⁺ reaction very close to threshold. The measurement was done at the CELSIUS storage ring. The ⁶Li ions were detected in a zero-degree spectrometer equipped with solid state detectors.

A series of outgassing measurements were performed in order to select ultra-high vacuum compatible materials for the construction of the CHICSi detector system.

The paper gives an overview on a proposed major facility at GSI and its main scientific aims. By means of innovative accelerators and storage-cooler rings, high-energy beams of all elements as well as rare isotope- and antiproton beams of unprecedented intensity and quality can be provided. There with long-standing questions in different fields of physics can be addressed, most of them related to the basic structure of hadronic matter, such as: nuclear structure far from stability; explosive stellar nucleosynthesis; fundamental symmetries, in particular of weak interaction; origin of hadronic mass; restoration of chiral symmetry; quark deconfinement at high density; plasmas under extreme conditions; strong-field atomic physics. A unique feature of the new facility is that different research programs can be performed to a large extent in truly parallel operation.

The operation of the experimental storage ring ESR with beams of highly charged heavy ions has been studied at GSI over more than a decade. Beam cooling, either stochastic or by electrons, and internal gas jet target have been applied routinely. The conceptual design of a new storage ring complex at GSI is based mainly on experimental data for equilibrium beam parameters and cooling times measured at that ring. The generation of intense rare isotope beams is one of the pillars for the proposed GSI Future Project (http://www.gsi.de/GSI-future/project) which makes use of the existing UNILAC/SIS18 as injector for a new 100 Tm-synchrotron, SIS100. Especially nuclear physics experiments with stored and cooled rare isotope beams at essentially increased beam intensities will deliver important information on properties and structure of nuclei far from stability.

At RIKEN a versatile heavy ion accelerator system composed of a cascade of cyclotrons is under construction. As a second phase of the project, MUSES, an accumulator ring for an RI beam, and an electron-RI collider were planned and R&D works have been performed. Due mainly to budgetary problems, MUSES is now unlikely to be realized with its initial designed concept and with the expected schedule. In the present paper, the essence of design works of accelerator and electron-RI collision experiments are discussed.

A novel method to explore nuclear structure with an electron heavy ion (eA) collider situated in the new experimental storage ring (NESR) for heavy ions within the framework of the GSI future project is presented. Concepts and possible experiments are outlined, and their specific advantages and disadvantages compared to currently available techniques are discussed.

Recently GSI presented the plans for a major new international research facility (http://www.gsi.de/GSI-future/). Highly luminous secondary beams with excellent quality encompassing the production of antiprotons will be delivered. In a High Energy Storage Ring (HESR) with a bending power of 50 Tm antiprotons will be cooled either stochastically or by electrons. The envisaged limits are a momentum range of 1.5 to 15 GeV/c and a luminosity of 2 × 10³² cm^-2 s^-1. Four major physical research goals can be addressed: high precision charmonium spectroscopy, medium effects of open and hidden charm, the search for glueballs and hybrids, and the production of hypernuclei.

The experimental conditions at the next generation facilities for stored radioactive ion beams presently proposed or under construction will provide unique opportunities for nuclear structure studies on nuclei far off stability and will enable to explore completely new and unknown regions in the chart of nuclides. In particular, the predicted luminosities will allow for the investigation of direct reactions with stored and cooled radioactive beams in inverse kinematics using internal H, He, etc. targets. Such light-ion induced direct reactions, as for example elastic and inelastic scattering, transfer, charge exchange, or knock-out reactions, have been proved in the past, for the case of stable nuclei, to be powerful tools for obtaining nuclear structure information, and were also applied within the last decade for the investigation of light exotic nuclei with radioactive beams bombarding external targets.

A brief overview on the physics program planned at the future NESR storage ring at GSI, the physics questions to be addressed, the dedicated reactions to be used, and the regions of interest in the chart of nuclides is given. The advantage of using stored beams and internal targets for such investigations will depend on the specific exotic nuclei and reactions chosen. This is discussed by a comparison of the conditions for the application of internal and external targets for reaction experiments with exotic beams.

For the special case of elastic proton scattering at intermediate energies a feasibility study is presented, including a discussion of the experimental scenario. This method was applied recently for the investigation of nuclear matter distributions of the light neutron-rich halo nuclei ^6,8He and ¹¹Li using external targets. A few examples of the results are briefly discussed. The use of internal targets and stored beams will allow in future to extend such investigations to a wide range of medium heavy and heavy nuclei far off stability, and will therefore be one of the key reactions of the experimental program at the future NESR facility.

The ITEP-TWAC is a new heavy ion accumulator facility under construction at ITEP in Moscow (B Sharkov et al 1998 Nucl. Instrum. Meth. A 415 20). The TWAC project directs on development and promotion of high intensity and high power heavy ion beam technology. The main goal of the TWAC project is accumulation in the storage ring of intense ion beam, its longitudinal compression and using the extracted beam for plasma experiments.

An electron cooler with electron energy of 380 keV provides a small ion bunch size during charge-exchange injection into the U10 accumulator ring (I Meshkov et al 2001 Design project of electron cooling system for TWAC accumulator ring (Dubna)). The cooling time is compared with the storage time during charge-exchange multi-turn injection. The electron cooler allows us to significantly improve the beam parameters at the target (specific energy, specific power and so on) and to suppress the beam losses by an order of magnitude. The application of electron cooling allows an increase in of the final power of an extracted ion beam on a target by a factor 2–3.

Absolute cross sections of the photonuclear reaction of ³He and ⁴He are measured near the peak energies of the excitation functions by using a Laser-Compton-Scattered γ-ray beam and a time projection chamber filled with active target gases. The results are compared with recent calculations for few-nucleon systems based on Faddeev-AGS formalism and Lorentz-kernel transform method.

Trapping and cooling techniques play an increasingly important role in many areas of science. This review concentrates on recent applications of ion traps installed at accelerator facilities to atomic and nuclear physics such as mass spectrometry of radioactive isotopes, weak interaction studies, symmetry tests, determination of fundamental constants, laser spectroscopy, and spectroscopy of highly-charged ions. In addition, ion traps are proven to be extremely efficient devices for (radioactive) ion beam manipulation as, for example, retardation, accumulation, cooling, beam cleaning, charge-breeding, and bunching.

At the Kernfysisch Versneller Instituut (KVI) in Groningen, NL, a new facility (TRIµP) is under development. Radioactive nuclei will be produced using heavy ion beams from the superconducting AGOR cyclotron. They are then slowed down and finally trapped in ion or atomic traps in order to perform precision experiments with them. The facility will be open for use by the worldwide community. The present local research programme includes precision studies of nuclear β-decays through β-neutrino (recoil nucleus) momentum correlations in weak decays as well as searches for permanent electric dipole moments in heavy atomic systems. Such experiments offer a large potential for discovering new physics or to put sensitive limits on parameters in models beyond standard theory.

In the talk, I presented recent results demonstrating the novel research opportunities in atomic and molecular physics at ion-cooler storage rings. For a spectroscopy of atomic and molecular data, it is the extended observation and interaction time of the stored ions that is exploited. Either one excites the ions inside the storage and detects the delayed decay or one inserts excited atomic, molecular, or cluster ions into the ring for measuring the decay of long lived metastable states, molecular and cluster excitations. Metastable levels in ions decay by weak forbidden radiative transitions and the corresponding atomic lifetimes can be ms instead of ns. A laser probing method has been developed to determine such lifetimes in CRYRING (D Rostohar et al 2001 Phys. Rev. Lett.86 1466). The high spectral resolution of the method has opened possibilities to study ions for iron group elements and rare earths elements, for which no experimental studies had been possible previously.

The application of an electrostatic ring for storage of ions with energies of several tens of keV is attractive for atomic and molecular science. The main goal of the KEK electrostatic ring is the storage of bio-molecular ions with atomic numbers of A ≈ 1000–10,000. An electron-beam cooler/target was installed in the KEK electrostatic ring for electron cooling and studying of electron-ion collisions. In accordance with simulations application of an electron cooler permits one to suppress multiple scattering of the stored ions with the residual gas atoms and thereby to increase the ion lifetime several times.

Recently, bunched crystalline ion beams have been realized in the table-top rf quadrupole storage ring PALLAS by means of laser cooling. Here, a novel method for the measurement of the spatial distribution of the ion bunch is presented which is based on the time-resolved analysis of the fluorescence emitted by the ions during cooling. Thus, the phase transition from a gaseous to a crystalline beam can be followed monitoring the whole phase space, and structural transitions can be studied as a function of the variable longitudinal confinement. Surprisingly, the length of crystalline bunches was found to be considerably shortened by a factor of three with respect to the length expected for space charge dominated bunches.

Concluding remarks and comments are made on a very successful meeting on the physics at storage devices. The meeting is put in perspective and how the field started two decades ago is discussed.

A list of Participants at the 5th International Conference on Nuclear Physics at Storage Rings, STORI '02 is given.

A list of members of the committees for the 5th International Conference on Nuclear Physics at Storage Rings, STORI '02 is given.