Institut de Recherche sur les Lois Fondamentales de l'Univers

IRFU's Double Chooz group has just published some surprising results regarding the flux of antineutrinos generated by uranium and plutonium fission products in nuclear power reactors. A more precise estimate of this flux has revealed a +3% shift with respect to the predictions considered as the ... More »

The Double Chooz collaboration recently completed its neutrino detector which will see anti-neutrinos coming from the Chooz nuclear power plant in the French Ardennes. The experiment is now ready to take data in order to measure fundamental neutrino properties with important consequences for ... More »

High field magnetic resonance imaging at field strengths at or above 7 tesla appears to be one of the most promising techniques for the early detection of neurological pathologies. Currently beyond the reach of most MRI system manufacturers, this imaging technology is beset with new technological ... More »

In August 2010 at CERN in Geneva, a team of physicists from SEDI and SPP working in collaboration with a group from ETH-Zurich obtained the first successful results from a MicroMegas detector operating in a time projection chamber filled with pure cryogenic argon at a temperature of 87.2 ... More »

    The instrument known as MUSETT1 detected its first heavy nuclei during a commissioning experiment that took place in early April 2010 at the GANIL2 accelerator in Caen. MUSETT was built for identifying very heavy elements: transfermium, which are the elements beyond fermium ... More »

IRFU (the Institute for Research on the Fundamental Laws of the Universe) has created the first prototype of the Alexia system, an automatic solution preparation system containing the radioactive tracers required for medical imaging using the scintigraphy technique.   This project is ... More »

In Japan at the end of January 2010, the detectors of the Tokai to Superkamiokande (T2K, [ti:tu:kei]), developed at Saclay, observed their first neutrinos. These detectors consist of two large chambers where the tracks of charged particles are able to be reconstructed and the neutrino beam can be ... More »

The CHyMENE project (Cible d'Hydrogène Mince pour l'Etude des Noyaux Exotiques -Thin hydrogen target for the study of exotic nuclei) has the ambitious goal of producing a thin target of pure hydrogen, without using a container, suitable for experiments using the low-energy heavy ion beam ... More »

    Engineers and physicists from IRFU have successfully assembled and commissioned three large chambers designed to reconstruct charged particle tracks. The chambers will characterize the neutrino beam used in the T2K (Tokai to Kamiokande) experiment. They are the first large Time ... More »

At the end of March 2009, the ALICE Muon Spectrometer took cosmic rays over a period of two weeks. The ALICE group at Saclay2 was closely involved in the design, development, construction and installation of a part of the chambers of this Spectrometer3. The purpose of the cosmic ray test was to ... More »

It has now been more than two years that Antares1, the underwater telescope installed in the depths of the abyssal plains 2500 m under the Mediterranean, is scanning the skies through the Earth in search of neutrinos. Over a thousand of them have already been observed until today, making ... More »

On November 14, 2008, the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) successfully generated a nominal magnetic field of 4 tesla. This success rewards IRFU efforts for the design and construction of what constitutes the largest superconducting solenoid magnet in the world. Over a period of approximately one month, ... More »

        The high energy part of the SPIRAL2 linear accelerator (new GANIL1 accelerator scheduled for implementation in 2012) uses two types of superconducting cavities. IRFU's Accelerator, Cryogenics and Magnetism Department is responsible for the design and development of ... More »

The 11.75 tonne whole body Iseult magnet to be installed in the Neurospin centre in 2012 will push back the boundaries of cerebral imaging. A key step in the success of this Franco-German project is the development of the SEHT test station in which a nominal field strength of 8 teslas was ... More »

Part of the IFMIF-EVEDA1) project consists of the construction of a prototype deuton2) accelerator at Rokkasho-Mura in Japan. The accelerator is due to enter service in 2013. The purpose of the EVEDA phase is to validate the IFMIF project which aims to investigate the strength of materials ... More »