PIAFE: Experiments with accelerated fission fragments

Abstract

Abstract Even very experienced experimental nuclear physicists are surprised when they hear for the first time that fission fragments, produced in a special source at a reactor, should be sent to an accelerator in order to irradiate targets with neutron rich radioactive heavy-ion beams. Of course, there are many technical problems which have to be solved. However, a close look at this exotic project shows that the fission fragment beams have rather high intensities and that there is a wealth of new and very interesting physics which can be done with such a facility. This project is presently being discussed in Grenoble, where the High Flux Reactor of the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) is only about 400 m from the accelerator complex SARA(Systeme Accelerateur Rhone Alpes) of the Institut des Sciences Nucleaires (ISN). The name of the project is PIAFE (Projet d' Ionisation et d' AcctlCration de Faisceaux Exotiques), which sounds (to French ears) like le piaf, the sparrow. A workshop and collaboration meeting ...