Jun 30, 2023
On 9 June 2023, Sylvie Retailleau, Minister for Higher Education and Research, and Agnès Pannier-Runacher, Minister for Energy Transition, visited the GANIL facilities. On this occasion, Sylvie Retailleau announced €40 million for GANIL's projects funding, in particular the renovation of the cyclotrons (CYREN project) and the DESIR project, thanks to an investment made possible by the Research Programming Act. The NEWGAIN project will also benefit from this funding.
Jun 25, 2023
On 23 June 2023, GANIL (Grand Accélérateur National d'Ions Lourds), one of the world's leading laboratories for research using ion beams, obtained building permission for the future DESIR experimental room, part-funded by an Equipex. The permit authorises the launch of construction work, starting with deep earthworks in July 2023, with the aim of taking delivery of the building in spring 2025.
Jan 16, 2023
After several years of development at Saclay, the first part of the Falstaff spectrometer was moved to GANIL in 2021 and then installed on NFS for the study of uranium 235. The experiment that took place in November and December 2022 was the first to use an actinide target on SPIRAL2. It demonstrated the good performance of this device.
Oct 13, 2022
The pygmy dipole resonance (PDR) is a vibrational mode of the nucleus that occurs in neutron-rich nuclei. It is described as the oscillation of a neutron skin against a core symmetric in number of protons and neutrons (Figure 1). The PDR has been the subject of numerous studies, both experimental and theoretical.
Oct 03, 2022
The LINAC SPIRAL2 successfully produced its first oxygen beam on September 16. After protons at the end of 2019 and deuterons in 2021, the GANIL linear accelerator is taking its first steps in accelerating heavy ions produced by the PHOENIX_V3 source. An essential development for the scientific program to come with the S3 spectrometer currently being installed.
Sep 23, 2021
An experiment performed at GANIL with the new detection device ACTAR TPC (ACTive TARget Time Projection Chamber) allowed for the development of a new technique for the direct reconstruction of the 3D trajectories of the protons emitted by the isomeric state of 54mNi nucleus and simultaneously visualize their decay time (the 4th dimension). This observation is an unprecedented test of theoretical models since it probes some extremely weak components of the wave functions describing the structure of this nucleus.
Dec 15, 2020
In December 2019, the NFS (Neutrons For Science) facility received its first proton beams, delivered by the linear accelerator of the new Spiral2 facility at the GANIL. On the fringes of the progressive commissioning of the accelerator in 2020, short beam periods were used to successfully test several NFS components. The first experiments are planned at the facility in the fall of 2021.
Dec 14, 2020
GANIL is commissioning its new superconducting linear accelerator (LINAC - Figure 1). This high-power accelerator provides GANIL with new possibilities in terms of beams for nuclear physics research. By providing beams with an intensity of up to 5 mA (3x1016 particles per second), the new SPIRAL2 (2nd generation on-line radioactive ion production system) LINAC will enable the GANIL's various scientific and technical programs to cross new frontiers.
Sep 15, 2020
Thanks to the GANIL accelerated heavy ion collisions and the detection of reaction products with the INDRA detector, it was possible to deduce the evolution parameters of chemical elements in stellar phenomena.
These chemical elements, light nuclei (d, t, 3He, α, 6He…), are created by aggregation of protons and neutrons during the collision between the projectile nucleus and the target nucleus.
Jul 21, 2020
The combination of the AGATA multi-detector [right]
and the VAMOS spectrometer [left] showed that the
balance between the two contributions was more
complex than previously envisaged.
Jun 17, 2020
GANIL hosted the annual IPAC conference in GANIL but not physically in Caen but “virtually” (due the pandemic conditions).
This first virtual conference was “attended ” by 3000 people from the world wide accelerator community, representing around 300 institutions/laboratories.
The conference consisted of 77 prerecorded talks lasting around 25 hours and two sessions, the awards and the closing ceremony were broadcast live.
A summary of statistics can be accessed here.
Nov 12, 2019
For the first time, a team of researchers was able to measure and accurately identify daughter nuclei produced by the fission of uranium-239 fission. This was made possible by the unique combination of GANIL equipment and beams. It is published in the Physical Review Letter*.
Jul 15, 2019
By a decision published on 8 July 2019, the French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) authorisedauthorized the commissioning of the SPIRAL2* facility at GANIL in Caen. The various steps to start the accelerator have thus begun, with a view to hosting the first experiments in the Neutrons For Science (NFS) room.
Dec 24, 2018
Theoretical work involving researchers from Ganil, the University of Huelva in Spain and the Racah Institute of Physics in Israel, confirms the vibrational nature of cadmium-110, reproducing experimental observations that called this nature into question. Since the 1970s experiments have revealed the existence of non-vibrational states called "intruder" states.
Sep 21, 2018
The first triplet of superconducting multipoles of the S3 Super Separator Spectrometer arrived at Ganil on August 29, 2018. S3 is one of the experiment rooms of the Spiral2 facility. The magnet, with a mass of 2.8 tonnes, is 1.8 m long and almost as high. This innovative type of magnet is very compact despite the number of optical functions it can generate (quadrupole, sextupole, octupole and dipole). It is the first of a series of seven to be delivered to the Ganil.
Jul 27, 2018
GANIL (Grand accélérateur national d'ions lourds) is carrying out its 2018 experimental campaign from April to July. During the four months of operation, experiments in nuclear physics, atomic physics and materials science will be conducted by research teams from all around the world. Industrial users will also be welcomed at GANIL.
During this period, the GANIL accelerators will operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Feb 02, 2018
During an experiment carried out at the accelerator of the Australian National University (Canberra, Australia), a French-Australian collaboration (GANIL Caen, IPN Orsay, IRFU/DPhN Saclay, ANU Canberra) first identified the fragments created in quasi-fission reactions with atomic numbers Z up to plutonium (Z=94) and mass A. For this study, near-fission reactions were induced during collisions between 48Ti projectile ions, accelerated to 276 MeV, and target atoms of 238U.
Dec 21, 2017
Taking a high definition picture of nuclear reactions is now possible with the new ACTAR TPC (ACtive TARget Time Projection Chamber) detector developed at GANIL as part of an international collaboration. The ACTAR TPC device fulfils two functions simultaneously: as a target and as a detector. Indeed, the gas of which it is filled constitutes the target of matter in which the incident ion beam interacts.
Dec 20, 2017
GANIL (Grand accélérateur national d'ions lourds) and LPC Caen (Laboratoire de physique Corpusculaire) have received a grant of 630,000 euros from the Normandy Region for the MORA project, a research program on the imbalance between matter and antimatter in the Universe.
Jun 23, 2017
In line with its mission to host interdisciplinary research, CIMAP (Centre de recherche sur les Ions, les MAtériaux et la Photonique) will host experiments in 2017 from various sources, ranging from solid-state physics to radiobiology, distributed over 3 beamlines covering a wide range of energy: IRRSUD (~1MeV/A, output C0), D1/SME (~10MeV/A, output CSS1) and D1/HE (output CSS2).
