The SPES project: An ISOL facility for exotic beams

Abstract

SPES (Selective Production of Exotic Species) is an INFN project to develop a Radioactive Ion Beam (RIB) facility as an intermediate step toward EURISOL. The SPES project is part of the INFN Road Map for the Nuclear Physics development in Italy and is supported by the whole Italian Nuclear Physics community and mainly by LNL and LNS the INFN National Laboratories of Nuclear Physics in Legnaro and Catania. The Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro (LNL) was chosen as the site for the facility construction due to the presence of the PIAVE-ALPI accelerator complex, which will be used as re-accelerator for the RIBs. The SPES project is based on the ISOL method with an UCx Direct Target and makes use of a proton driver of at least 40 MeV energy and 200 microA current. Neutron-rich radioactive beams will be produced by Uranium fission at an expected fission rate in the target in the order of 1013 fissions per second. The key feature of SPES is to provide high intensity and high-quality beams of neutron rich nuclei to perform forefront research in nuclear structure, reaction dynamics and interdisciplinary fields like medical, biological and material sciences. The exotic isotopes will be re-accelerated by the ALPI superconducting linac at energies up to 10AMeV for masses in the region of A=130 amu with an expected rate on target of 109 pps.