Institute of research into the fundamental laws of the Universe

It counts about fifty people. It is composed of researchers, post-doctoral fellows, thesis students, as well as engineers and technicians.

Research is experimental as well as theoretical. They focus on 4 major themes:

• nuclear structure: study of the evolution of the structure of the atomic nucleus from the valley of stability to the limits of matter's existence, and its manifestations in terms of lifespan, shape, mass, modes of nucleon decay and organization.
• nuclear dynamics: study of nuclear reaction mechanisms and characteristics of nuclear material in different temperature and density ranges.
• nuclear astrophysics: study of explosive nucleosynthesis mechanisms at work in different types of stellar objects such as (super)novae, X-ray bursts and the modelling of these objects.
• fundamental interactions: high precision measurements of the beta decay of certain radioactive nuclei in order to test the robustness of the Standard Model, on which our understanding of the Universe is based.

The close articulation between the different research themes leads the members of the physical group to carry out different theoretical works at the same time and to carry out experiments whose complementarity makes it possible to advance our understanding of the organization of matter on the scale of the infinitely small as well as the infinitely large.

As host physicists, GANIL researchers play a key role in the scientific animation and use of the facility by a large international scientific community. As such, they are strongly committed to improving its performance and developing new measurement tools that are increasingly efficient and accurate, with the support of the laboratory's technical teams.