The EURISOL Project
In order to explore ever-more exotic regions of the nuclear chart, towards the limits of stability of nuclei, European nuclear physicists have built several large-scale facilities in various countries of the European Union. Today they are collaborating in planning a new radioactive ion beam (RIB) facility which will permit them to investigate hitherto unreachable parts of the nuclear chart. This European ISOL (isotope-separation-on-line) facility is called EURISOL.
The EURISOL project is aimed at the design – and subsequent construction – of the “next-generation” European ISOL radioactive ion beam (RIB) facility. The ion yields delivered by the current ISOL facilities, or those under construction (HIE-ISOLDE, SPES, SPIRAL2) will be exceeded by at least a factor 100. This will open a wide field of research for physicists.
A first Design Study began in 2005 in order to work on the technologically challenging aspects of the project, the instrumentation and the radiation safety issue. It was continued with the EURISOL Design Study, which was finalized in 2009.
As defined in the Design Study, the EURISOL layout consists of a superconducting linear accelerator providing protons of energy 1 GeV and an impressive power of 5 MW, but also capable of accelerating deuterons, 3He and ions up to mass 40. The beams will impinge simultaneously on two types of targets, either directly or after conversion of the protons into neutrons through a spallation target surrounded by kilograms of fissile material. The unstable nuclei produced diffuse out of the target, are ionized and selected, and can be used directly at low energy or reaccelerated by another linear accelerator to energies up to 150 MeV per nucleon in order to induce nuclear reactions.
EURISOL – Distributed Facility (EURISOL-DF)
The realization of new radioactive ion beam facilities and the upgrade of existing ones has been recognized as an absolute priority by the nuclear physics community worldwide, a priority triggered by the need of accessing reliable information on nuclei far from stability.
These facilities, in particular ISOLDE, SPIRAL 2 and SPES, with ISOL@MYRRHA, can be considered, as intermediate and ambitious step towards EURISOL, working together to realize the project EURISOL – Distributed Facility (EURISOL-DF).
Goals of EURISOL-DF
- Prepare strong scientific case for RIB science and applications
- Support, upgrade, optimize and coordinate ISOL-based European facilities and projects as a necessary step towards EURISOL
- Foster R&D on RIB production and Instrumentation towards EURISOL
- EURISOL as a single site facility as a long term goal
Members of EURISOL-DF
The EURISOL-DF membership will be open to all European RIB facilities. Initially the members of the EURISOL-DF will be GANIL-SPIRAL2, ISOLDE and INFN -SPES.
The ISOL@MYRRHA facility is a candidate for the future full member of EURISOL-DF.
The EURISOL-DF will closely collaborate with FAIR facility (Darmstadt, Germany) and with smaller scale EU ISOL facilities: ALTO (Orsay, France) & JYFL (Jyvaskyla, Finland).
EURISOL Design Study (EURISOL DS)
The EURISOL Design Study was a project funded by the European Community (EC) within the 6th Framework Programme as a Research Infrastructures Action under the “Structuring the European Research Area Specific Programme”, implemented as a “Specific Support Action”.
The Project started officially on the 1st of February 2005 and was finalized in 2009 with the title of “European Isotope Separation On-Line Radioactive Ion Beam Facility” (acronym EURISOL DS), coordinated by GANIL.
The project was a follow-up to the EURISOL Feasibility Study, funded by the EC as a Research & Technical Development (RTD) study under the 5th Framework programme (FP5) from 2000 to the end of 2003, resulting in publication of The EURISOL Report.
The study addressed the major technological problems which were expected to arise in the creation of a facility able to provide exotic ions in quantities which are orders of magnitude higher than those currently available anywhere else in the world. A feasibility study into the use of the EURISOL facility for the production of pure electron-neutrinos was an integral part of the design study; this was the so-called new “beta-beam” proposal.
EURISOL User Group (EURISOL-UG)
The EURISOL Users Group is an organization of scientists, students and research personnel who are interested in research and development at the planned EURISOL facility.
The objectives of the EURISOL-UG are:
- To build up an identifiable User Community for EURISOL.
- To regularly update the EURISOL Physics Case.
- To furnish input to the EURISOL project.
- To interact with the user communities of the current ISOL facilities.
- To lobby to obtain financial support to proceed towards the realization of the EURISOL Facility.
For any information or documentation about EURISOL please contact fondiesterni.lnl@lnl.infn.it.