Heavy Ions Research Facility in Lanzhou (HIRFL)

Abstract

Heavy ions accelerator has greatly scientific significance in nuclear physics, atomic physics and astrophysics. It is also of great social needs in many application fields, such as nuclear detection, radiation medicine and medical physics. In addition, Heavy ions accelerator has important application prospects in the interdisciplinary fields of nuclear physics, nuclear technology, radiation biology, material science, biology and agriculture. Therefore, heavy ions accelerator makes great contributions to the promotion of human development and social progress. At present, there are more than 30 large scale heavy ions accelerators. And the main overseas heavy ions accelerators are the BNL-RHIC in the United States, the RIKEN-RIBF in Japan, the MSU-FRIB in the United States, the GANIL-SPIRAL2 in France and the FAIR in Europe which is under construction. In China, however, there are the BRIF in Beijing and the HIRFL in Lanzhou being operation and High Intensity heavy-ion Accelerator Facility (HIAF) which will be built in Huizhou. Heavy Ions Research Facility in Lanzhou (HIRFL), one of the most important research facilities for nuclear physics in the world, is the largest scale heavy-ion accelerator facility with the most ion species and the highest ion energy in China at present. And its main parameters have reached international advanced level. HIRFL is composed of ECR ion source, sector focused cyclotron (SFC), separated sector cyclotron (SSC), radioactive ion beam lines RIBLL1 and RIBLL2, cooler storage rings CSRm and CSRe, and many terminals. HIRFL can accelerate all ion species and provide high quality stable beams and radioactive beams with many ion species and broad energy ranges to carry on the heavy-ion physics and crossing discipline research. This paper is mainly to present the status of HIRFL and its progress, and the development of heavy-ion accelerator facilities at home and abroad are also introduces briefly.