The Gamma Factory Project at CERN: a New Generation of Research Tools Made of Light

Abstract

The Gamma Factory project offers the possibility of creating novel re- search tools by producing relativistic beams of highly ionised atoms in CERN’s accelerator complex and exciting their atomic degrees of freedom by lasers to produce strongly collimated high-energy photon beams. Inten- sity of such beams would exceed by several orders of magnitude the ones offered by the presently operating light sources, in the particularly interest- ing energy domain from about 100 keV to above 400 MeV. In this energy regime, the high-intensity photon beams can be used to produce secondary beams of polarised electrons, polarised positrons, polarised muons, neu- trinos, neutrons and radioactive ions. New research opportunities in many domains of physics, from particle physics through nuclear physics to atomic physics, can be opened by the Gamma Factory scientific programme based on the above primary and secondary beams. Except for basic research, it offers also a possibility for various application studies, e.g. in medical physics and nuclear power.