CIRIL: Interdisciplinary Research at GANIL

CIRIL: 40 Years of Interdisciplinary Research at GANIL Soon after the decision was made in 1975 to construct the Grand Accélérateur National d’Ions Lourds (GANIL) in Caen, Normandy, France, it became clear that in addition to nuclear physics, interdisciplinary research (atomic physics, solid-state and materials science, radiobiology, and chemistry) could benefit from the unique heavy ion beams available. Consequently, the Centre Interdisciplinaire de Recherche avec les Ions Lourds (CIRIL) was established in 1982 [1] and the first experiments were conducted in February 1983 [2]. The buildings are situated close to the GANIL beamlines within the campus Jules Horowitz. CIRIL is the welcoming platform of the Centre de Recherche sur les Ions, les MAtériaux et la Photonique (CIMAP). The beam-lines available at the advent of the new millennium were already presented in Nucl. Phys. News [1]; here we focus mainly on available experimental equipments. In 2013, a colloquium held in Caen celebrated 30 years of interdisciplinary research at CIRIL, and the proceedings of this meeting offer an overview of interdisciplinary research with GANIL beams [3]. To date, more than 1,200 publications (about 3,000 different authors) and about 200 related theses point out the importance of interdisciplinary research at GANIL. An important mission of CIRIL is to foster the scientific community by means of numerous French and European networks, currently EMIR&A [4] (a federation of accelerator facilities in France) and RADIATE [5] (research and development with ion beams in Europe). The CIRIL platform has played a major role in networks around the world (PAMIR, NEEDS, EMIR, France hadron, LEIF, ITS LEIF, SPIRIT, RADIATE). Interdisciplinary proposals for experiments are evaluated by the GANIL interdisciplinary Program Advisory Committee (iPAC) organized by CIRIL. Depending on the available beam time to be distributed, iPAC takes place once or twice a year. A fraction of beam time (about 20–30%) is distributed via the EMIR and RADIATE networks after evaluation by their respective committees. CIRIL hosts on average about 70 experiments per year in which more than 150 scientists from national, European, and international scientific communities participate. The need for accelerator facilities worldwide was already discussed in Ref. [6]. During the last five years, human and financial investments (CPER E2S2 20162020 in partnership with GANIL for the renovation of beam-lines) brought significant spinoffs for innovation and research. Table 1 highlights milestones of the development of interdisciplinary research at CIRIL–GANIL.