European Nuclear Science and Applications Research

Project Information

ENSAR

Grant agreement ID: 262010

Project closed

Start date 1 September 2010

End date 31 December 2014

Funded under

• Specific Programme "Capacities": Research infrastructures

Total cost € 11 026 938,02

EU contribution € 8 000 000,00

Coordinated by

GRAND ACCELERATEUR NATIONAL D'IONS LOURDS
France

Final Report Summary - ENSAR (European Nuclear Science and Applications Research)

Executive Summary:
ENSAR is the Integrating Activity of Nuclear Scientists from almost all European countries performing research in three of the major subfields of Nuclear Physics: Nuclear Structure, Nuclear Astrophysics and Applications of Nuclear Science. Its core aim is to provide access to seven of the complementary world-class large-scale facilities: GANIL (F), GSI (D), joint LNL-LNS (I), JYFL (FI), KVI (NL), CERN-ISOLDE (CH) and ALTO (F). These facilities provide stable and radioactive ion beams of excellent qualities ranging in energies from tens of keV/u to a few GeV/u. The stable ion beams range from protons to uranium. In this vein, it proposes an optimised ensemble of Networking (NAs), Transnational Access (TNAs) and Joint Research Activities (JRAs), which ensure qualitative and quantitative improvement of the access provided by the current seven infrastructures, which are at the core of this proposal. The novel and innovative developments that will be achieved by the RTD activities will also assure state-of-the-art technology needed for the new large-scale projects.
Our community of nuclear scientists profits from the diverse range of world-class research infrastructures in Europe that can supply different ion beams and energies. We have made great efforts to make the most efficient use of these facilities by developing the most advanced and novel equipment needed to pursue their excellent scientific programmes and applying state-of-the-art developments in nuclear instrumentation to other research fields and to benefit humanity (e.g. archaeology, medical imaging). Together with multi-disciplinary and application-oriented research at the facilities these activities ensure a high-level socioeconomic impact.
To enhance the access to these facilities, the community has defined a number of JRAs, using as main criterion scientific and technical promise. These activities deal with novel and innovative technologies to improve the operation of the facilities. This involves all facets of operation of an accelerator facility starting with the improvement of ECR ion sources to increase the intensity and the energy of stable and radioactive ion beams, to ISOL target technology aiming to increase the intensity and reliability of the delivered exotic radioactive ion beams (RIBs) for the operating European ISOL facilities, to improvement of low-energy beam preparation and manipulation of RIBs and development of novel spectroscopic tools for studies with RIBs making use of state-of-the-art laser techniques, to development of new detection materials and detection systems and to construct general platforms for both simulations of current and future detector set-ups. In addition, a key JRA aims at integrating the laboratories in Central and South-Eastern European countries with those elsewhere in Europe. Another JRA promotes collaboration between nuclear structure and reactions and astrophysics theorists in order to provide support to research performed at ENSAR infrastructures.
The NAs of ENSAR have been set-up with specific actions to strengthen the communities’ coherence around certain research topics, e.g. nuclear astrophysics, pooling of gamma and ancillary detectors, high-intensity stable beams and radioactive ion beams. They promote foresight studies for new instrumentation and methods and stimulate complementarity. They ensure a broad dissemination of results and stimulate multidisciplinary and application-oriented research at the Research Infrastructures, e.g. in the fields of radiobiology, medical imaging, space applications and solid-state physics. An outreach activity will be initiated to disseminate ENSAR applications to the public.
All of the objectives of ENSAR have been achieved within the project lifetime. More beam time has been delivered to the users by all ENSAR research infrastructures than stated in the ENSAR contract. The goals of the JRAs and NAs have been realised as indicated by the achieved milestones that have been set for each of the activities. These milestones and the deliverables of the activities are well-defined and measurable in timing and content. They have indeed all been achieved by the end of the project except for one milestone for which research work is still ongoing with high priority.

Project Context and Objectives:
In order to carry out research at the forefront of fundamental nuclear science, our community of nuclear scientists profits from the diverse range of large research infrastructures existing in Europe. These infrastructures can supply different species of ion beams and energies but are complementary in their provision of beams and address different aspects of nuclear structure. In this way, we can learn how the nuclear forces arising from the interaction between the building blocks of neutrons and protons manifest themselves in the rich structure of nuclei, and how different isotopes of elements are synthesised in primeval stellar processes.

These European nuclear physics facilities are world-class and excel in comparison with facilities elsewhere in the world. Furthermore, the vibrant European nuclear physics community has made great efforts in the past to make the most efficient use of these facilities by developing the most advanced and novel equipment needed to pursue the excellent scientific programmes proposed at them. Our community also has a long tradition of applying state-of-the-art developments in nuclear instrumentation to other research fields (e.g. archaeology) and to benefit humanity (e.g. medical imaging). Together with multidisciplinary and application-oriented research at these facilities, these activities ensure a high-level of socioeconomic impact. This has been done under the auspices of NuPECC (Nuclear Physics European Collaboration Committee) and drawing support from previous EC framework programmes. This community has striven to do the same during the ENSAR project and has delineated the steps needed to pursue coherent research programmes at these facilities. This was done within the framework of the recent Long-Range Plans (LRPs) of NuPECC “Perspectives for Nuclear Physics Research in Europe in the Coming Decade and Beyond” which has been published in 2004 and “Perspectives of Nuclear Physics in Europe” which has been published in 2010. In these LRPs, NuPECC addressed future perspectives in six major subfields of research in nuclear physics and re-emphasised the role of the European Network of complementary large-scale facilities where past achievements and future perspectives for research in nuclear physics are excellent. In these LRPs, there are also recommendations for future Pan-European facilities: i.e. FAIR, SPIRAL2 and ELI-NP.

ENSAR is the integrating activity for European nuclear scientists who are performing research in three of the major subfields addressed by NuPECC: Nuclear Structure, Nuclear Astrophysics and Applications of Nuclear Science. Its core aim is to provide access to seven of the complementary world-class large-scale facilities: GANIL (F), GSI (D), joint LNL-LNS (I), JYFL (FI), KVI (NL), CERN-ISOLDE (CH) and ALTO (F). These facilities provide stable and radioactive ion beams of excellent qualities ranging in energies from tens of keV/u to a few GeV/u. The stable ion beams range from protons to uranium. Radioactive ion beams are produced using the two complementary methods of in-flight fragmentation (IFF) and isotope separation on line (ISOL), so that several hundred isotopes are available for the user.

These facilities will be offering access to a very large, wide and diverse user community. The size of this community of physicists in nuclear structure, nuclear astrophysics, and applications of nuclear science in addition to the staff that is involved in accelerator and detector development and in running the facilities ranges between 2700-3000 scientists and highly qualified engineers according to a recent survey by NuPECC (http://www.nupecc.org/pub/). The facilities will provide an increased amount of beam time for applications of nuclear techniques, which has been realised during the lifespan of the ENSAR project. In a pioneering step, ENSAR has established an overarching Facility Coordinating Group with the mission to facilitate mutual information, coordination, harmonisation and exchange of best practices between the ENSAR research infrastructures.

To enhance the access to these facilities, the community has defined a number of Joint Research Activities (JRAs), using as main criterion scientific and technical promise. These activities deal with novel and innovative technologies to improve the operation of the facilities. They are in general relevant to more than one facility and rely on strong participation of the European university groups. These activities involve all facets of operation of an accelerator facility starting with the improvement of ECR ion sources to increase the intensity and the energy of stable and radioactive ion beams for physics experiments (ARES). This goes hand in hand with ISOL target technology for the development of new actinide targets, which aims at increasing the intensity and reliability of the delivered exotic radioactive ion beams (RIBs) for the operating European ISOL facilities (ActILab). These two activities are supplemented by an activity to improve the low-energy beam preparation and manipulation of RIBs and to go beyond the state-of-the-art in spectroscopic tools used in studies with RIBs (PREMAS). Experimenting at such facilities requires development of new detection materials and detection systems (INDESYS), general platforms for both simulations of current and future detector set-ups (SiNuRSE) and the development of modern theoretical tools for describing and interpreting experimental results as well as pointing the way ahead for experimental projects (THEXO). In addition, a key activity aims at integrating the laboratories in Central and South-Eastern European countries with those elsewhere in Europe, by developing novel technologies and methodologies of universal benefit that could be used both at these laboratories and elsewhere (EWIRA). These developments will give a strong impetus to these emerging laboratories and their communities and enhance their external use. It was indeed through this activity that use of these facilities became better structured and two of the research infrastructures qualified to be included in an “Integrating Activity” proposal for HORIZON 2020. Furthermore, these activities should attribute particular importance to all RTD work, which might lead to multidisciplinary or industrial applications.

The network activities of ENSAR have been set-up with specific actions to strengthen the communities’ coherence around certain research topics (nuclear astrophysics - ATHENA), to pool resources and to provide instruction courses to users (EGAN - Gamma and Ancillary detectors Network). They foster future cooperation towards achieving high-intensity stable beams (ECOS) and radioactive ion beams (EURISOL NET). They promote foresight studies for new instrumentation and methods and stimulate complementarity. They ensure a broad dissemination of results and stimulate multidisciplinary and application-oriented research at the Research Infrastructures (EFINION). This will be, and not exhaustively, in the fields of radiobiology, medical imaging, space applications and solid-state physics. An outreach activity will be initiated to disseminate ENSAR applications to the public. In addition to these five specific networks, the managing network FISCO insures a smooth running of the integrating activity as a whole in all aspects of technical, scientific, financial, administrative, contractual and legal activities. It aims also at stimulating dissemination of knowledge and outreach activities.

It is ENSAR’s top-priority objectives:
- to ensure that the European communities of Nuclear Structure, Nuclear Astrophysics and Applications of Nuclear Science concentrate on the most prominent Joint Research Activities, for further improvements and extensions of the infrastructure facilities,
- to stimulate multidisciplinary and application-oriented research,
- to promote the most needed R&D, as identified by the community, using as main criterion scientific and technical promise, combined with a rather rapid applicability,
- to focus on activities that are in general relevant to more than one facility, and
- to benefit from the R&D potential of the European University groups, often in leading positions.

All of the activities proposed by ENSAR have objectives which could be achieved within the project lifetime as indicated by the milestones that have been set for each of the activities. These milestones and the deliverables of the activities are well-defined and measurable in timing and content. They have indeed all been achieved by the end of the project except for one milestone for which research work is still ongoing with high priority.

Project Results:
The Integrating Activity ENSAR comprises 20 work packages: 6 Networking Activities (NAs) including that of the management of the project, FISCO, 7 Joint Research Activities (JRAs) and 7 Transnational Access Activities (TNAs). All the milestones and deliverables that have been foreseen since the beginning of the ENSAR project have been reached and accomplished except for one milestone (MS108) to achieve polarisation in experiments (see below). In the following, the accomplishments/highlights achieved during the lifespan of the project will be presented.

The management work package, WP01 NA01-FISCO, went into action at the start to confirm the work-package coordinators and to hold the first PCC meeting where the members of the PCC Executive Board were elected and a plan was made to form the work-packages steering committees. These steering committees were established soon afterwards. In addition to the consortium agreement which was accorded by all partners after several textual changes and finally signed, FISCO also worked to get the ENRI agreement signed in time. This agreement between the research infrastructures (RIs) of ENSAR aims at maintaining the collaboration between the RIs within research fields of common interest both fundamental and applied and establishing a Facility Coordinating Group (FCG). The FCG reviews the working procedures of all the Programme Advisory Committees (PACs) of the ENSAR RIs and participates in the definition and improvement of the criteria for access as well as make recommendations on common policies. This could entail harmonisation of the access procedures to the 7 ENSAR RIs and harmonisation of the support offered to users by the RIs. In its first meeting on 27 September 2011 in Belgodère, France the functioning of the PACs (and User Selection Panels) of the 7 infrastructures was presented, and a few issues were addressed, e.g.
- How to deal with new proposals (LoIs)? Referees - rankings – ENSAR support, etc.
- How to deal with accepted proposals? Scheduling of beam time.
- What is the policy with respect to backlogs?
- What to do regarding shutdown periods at major infrastructures?
ISOLDE: November 2012 - March 2014
GANIL: August 2012 - March 2013
GSI: 6 months of beam time in 2013-2014.
A few recommendations were made regarding a template for a good proposal, personal presentations of proposals by video or by local contact person, as well as the criteria to be used for evaluating the proposals.
In particular, because of the shutdown periods planned at the major infrastructures of ENSAR as a consequence of upgrading the facilities or building new ones, special attention was given to ENSAR-supported experiments at the facilities. These were given higher priority which meant that more experiments were supported by ENSAR. This is more on the average than would be expected from spreading beam-time allocation to ENSAR projects over four years. This special attention was also given to ENSAR-supported experiments after the shutdown periods.

FISCO is in charge of management meeting organisation, i.e. meetings of the FCG, Project Coordination Committee (PCC) and General Assembly (GA). A Town Meeting was organised in June 2013 in order to exchange information about the ENSAR results. Preference was given to young scientists to present the results of ENSAR-supported experiments or of the technical developments achieved through joint research activities. A draft plan for the dissemination of knowledge was written and was finalised during the 3rd reporting period. The plan for raising public awareness, i.e. a web site for the layman was also completed in the 3rd reporting period. It was realised in collaboration with NuPECC resulting in a web site for the layman written in many of the European languages.

During the ENSAR project 8 PCC meetings and 4 FCG meetings were held, with the 8th PCC meeting and 4th FCG meeting being held in April and November 2014, respectively. An additional PCC meeting was held prior to the fourth and last GA meeting in February 2015.

WP02 NA02-ECOS Two large workshops were held in May 2012 (Workshop on Future Super-Heavy Element Strategy, FUSHE2012) and in June 2012 (Workshop ECOS2012: Advances and challenges in nuclear physics with high intensity stable beams) in Weilrod, Germany and Como Lake, Italy, respectively. A meeting of facility leader was held in Orsay, France, in May 2013, in order to exchange best practices between facilities in matter of stable ion beam production.
ECOS organised the 2nd ECOS joint workshop, coordination committee meeting and ECOS town meeting in Orsay in October 2014. It delivered three reports on high-power thin-target technology, SHE-related research activities and collaborations/synergies between facilities providing stable ion beams in Europe. For a better preparation of experiments at European infrastructures an interactive European chart of stable beams was developed. ECOS played further a very important role in developing the strategic road map for high-intensity stable-beam facilities and, in particular, the construction of a future facility that could fulfil all the technical and scientific aims of ECOS.

WP03 NA03-EURISOL-NET organised a two-day workshop (42 participants) at CERN on 27-28 June 2011. Six R&D projects were identified and the expert working groups that will pursue these projects were formed. EURISOL-NET organised topical workshops in collaboration with the EURISOL User Group to update the physics case for EURISOL. The first topical meeting, hosted by INFN, took place even before the start of the ENSAR contract on 9-11 December 2009 in Catania. The second topical meeting (70 participants), hosted by CPAN and IFIC, was organised in Valencia on 21-23 February 2011. The next topical meeting on “Physics of Light Nuclei” was held in Lisbon, Portugal on 15-17 October 2012, in conjunction with the town meeting held 17-18 October 2012 in Lisbon. The town meeting, which was to be held in the 6th quarter, was delayed to October 2012 because of conflicts with other workshops. A Working Group Meeting was held in Jyväskylä, Finland, on 28-29 May 2013.
EURISOL-NET achieved all milestones and deliverables though with some delay for a few of them. Reports on transfer of R&D accomplishments between ISOL facilities, updated physics and instrumentation case for ISOL facilities and identification of technologies developed at ISOL facilities applicable at future facilities were delivered. The 5th and final topical meeting was held (50 participants) in York in July 2014 and the 2nd EURISOL town meeting was held (70 participants) jointly with ECOS network in Orsay in October 2014. During this last town meeting, EURISOL-NET discussed the advances useful for the design of the future “ultimate” facility EURISOL, following the strategy defined in the NuPECC roadmap for European research infrastructures. It also discussed the updated science case for ISOL facilities and for the future EURISOL facility in coordination with the user groups of the current ISOL facilities and the EURISOL User Group. It delineated the strategy to reach the ultimate goal through an intermediate step of proposing an ESFRI distributed EURISOL facility involving several ENSAR ISOL research infrastructures.

WP04 NA04-ATHENA In the first reporting period, ATHENA presented itself at four workshops and supported visits of members of its community to these workshops to present their work in the field. It planned joint workshops with EuroGENESIS and other European-scale projects as well as with DANCE@LANSCE, Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA. During the lifetime of the ENSAR project, three workshops were organised:
1. “Prospects in neutron time of flight”, Darmstadt, Germany (18-20 March 2013)
2. “ATHENA Brussels Workshop on Astrophysics” Brussels, Belgium (27-28 January 2014), and
3. ATHENA final workshop, Villa Vigoni, Lake Como, Italy (13-16 May 2014).

ATHENA co-sponsored “Nuclear physics in astrophysics VI” conference in Lisbon on 19-24 May 2013 and the Carpathian Summer School of Physics in Sinaia, Romania (13-26 July 2014). ATHENA and its aims were presented at several workshops and meetings during the lifespan of the ENSAR project to increase its visibility and encourage collaborations with the associated scientific communities in Italy, Germany, Austria, Portugal and Romania. The activities of ATHENA to several advances in the definition of the scientific goals of the European nuclear astrophysics community including identification of key reactions and preparation of experiments at ENSAR research infrastructures and at future neutron sources. A strong collaboration with theorists has been a strong component of the ATHENA activity and has led to improved theoretical determination and experimental evaluation of input parameters for different astrophysics scenarios.


WP05 NA05-EGAN Among EGAN’s actions, there are working group meetings, collaboration workshops, training courses, meetings of the scientific committee, coordination with hosting infrastructures and exchange of key personnel. EGAN organised its first workshop (120 participants) in Padova on 27-30 June 2011. The Scientific Committee and Working Groups (WGs) were set up during this workshop. WGs organised their own meetings afterwards. The second workshop was organised in Orsay, on 25-27 June 2012. The second meeting of the EGAN Scientific Committee took place in Orsay, France on 28 June 28 2012. The third workshop was organised in Liverpool, UK, on 24-27 June 2013, which was followed by the third meeting of the EGAN Scientific Committee in Liverpool on 28 June 2013. The EGAN scientific committee met at GSI, Darmstadt on 25 June 2014. Concurrently, the EGAN 2014 Workshop was held at GSI on 23-26 June 2014 with more than 100 participants. During these meetings, the status and perspectives of the different gamma-arrays in Europe were presented by the members of the committee. The possibility of developing a laboratory for Ge detectors production was discussed and steps were considered in that direction.

The first EGAN training course was organised in Liverpool on 5-9 December 2011. More than 30 young physicists participated and had hand-on experience with working with advanced gamma-ray detection systems. A second Training Course was organised at GSI on 3-7 December 2012 due to the success of the first one in Liverpool. More than 20 young researchers participated in the course on data analysis of AGATA experimental results. Based on the successes of the earlier training courses, EGAN, upon request by the collaboration, organised a third training course in Padova on 1-3 October 2014, which was attended by more than 30 young participants.

A very important action by EGAN was the organisation of several coordination meetings between the AGATA management and the hosting lab directors (LNL, GSI and GANIL) to coordinate the AGATA experimental campaigns at these RIs. The first meeting was held in Legnaro on 12 November 2011, the second in Paris on 19 December 2012, the third meeting at GSI, Darmstadt on 13 December 2013 and the fourth meeting at GANIL, Caen on 19 May 2014.

WP06 NA06-EFINION finished its website on time. EFINION had as first main task to document all applications running at laboratories directly or indirectly linked to ENSAR. For this purpose, a questionnaire was prepared and distributed to all ENSAR beneficiaries and associated partners. The filled questionnaires would serve as the primary source of information for the preparation of a professional catalogue aiming at promoting the societal impact of research carried out within ENSAR. However, the initial response to the questionnaire regarding the survey of past and present multidisciplinary and application-oriented research within ENSAR was, in first instance, less than desired. This delayed the preparation of the catalogue and most actions to collect the maximum of information for the Catalogue were still in progress and their fulfilment was delayed to Period 3.

An EFINION Workshop was organised in Vrachati/Corinth, Greece on 9-10 July 2014 and was attended by representatives of all participating research infrastructures. During this workshop the contents and the lay-out of the Catalogue on innovative multidisciplinary applications of nuclear ion beams and tools by ENSAR partners were discussed. These were finalised during the EFINION meeting at CERN in November 2014 and finally the “Catalogue of multi-disciplinary applications-oriented research activities of ENSAR” was published in December. The Communication Day at the European Parliament organised by EFINION to establish face-to-face dialogue between nuclear scientists and policy makers had unfortunately to be delayed till January 2015 because of agenda conflicts of interested parliamentarians. It was finally held on 27 January 2015 at the European Parliament in Brussels.

WP07 JRA01-ARES has achieved a number of remarkable results that could have interdisciplinary applications. It has been possible to study the plasma of ECR ion sources through dedicated experiments carried out at ATOMKI ECRIS allowing the taking of plasma photographs. At the same time, computer simulations were performed that were successful in reproducing the plasma spatial distribution. Similarly, simulations and experiments of beam transport from ECRIS extraction have been performed. The beam simulations were benchmarked by comparing them with beam-profile measurements made at the image plane of the analysing magnet following the ECR ion source. Nice agreement was obtained when space-charge compensation was included. Another highlight was the development of improved high-temperature induction ovens for the production of metallic beams. These beams are highly demanded at research infrastructures and improvement of their production efficiency and longevity is strongly needed.

The ARES activities within the second period have been characterised by a strong interaction between the different teams, not only within the same task but also between separate tasks. The very promising results achieved during the first period have been enriched by new ones giving a clearer scenario of the nonlinear effects in ECR plasmas. This achievement has been possible through conjugating novel spatially-resolved X-ray spectroscopy together with microwave diagnostics and classical invasive diagnostics. Such method permitted to obtain new information on the way that ECR and non-ECR behaviour is mixed in typical ion sources for the production of multi-charged ion beams. Speculations about the possible correlation between X-ray imaging and charge state distributions have been carried out and a new measurement methodology has been settled and tested for the first time at EIS test-bench at GSI giving promising results. Moreover, the frequency-tuning effect together with the two-frequency heating and the plasma-density enrichment by an adequate coating of the plasma chamber wall have been subject of different experiments with significant exchange of expertise between the different teams in the ARES framework. Investigations on emittance minimisation and space-charge compensation have been improved and with the simulations they give important information on the beam-formation and transport processes.

The development of high-temperature oven has been particularly challenging and even if the technological challenges are less evident than the scientific ones, the teams involved in the collaboration find the results obtained in the frame of the ARES collaboration very exciting. As for the manpower, the limited availability of additional manpower suggested to defer the use of such resources to a next period, so that most of the activities in the first period have been carried out with internal resources, and the additional manpower will have a more relevant weight on the activities of the third period. The preparation of new devices at different laboratories has permitted in fact to perform a similar number of experiments in the third period, which in some cases are absolutely original. For this reason, the team preparation carried out is a necessary starting point, giving yet valuable results and promising more for the next future.

ARES has achieved all milestones and deliverables that have been foreseen. Wide-ranging results have been obtained with measurements of different parameters of ECR plasmas and their correlations allowing for better modelling of plasmas ECRs. Simulations, making use of realistic modelling of plasmas and improved ion-beam extraction from an ECRIS, yield reliable predictions of ECRIS beam outputs. Improvement of metal ion-beam production has also been achieved by employing several techniques.

WP08 JRA02-ActILab built the facilities for synthesis of actinide targets (uranium carbide) and their characterisation before and after irradiation early on. Beam time was obtained at ISOLDE to test a prototype uranium carbide target for the production of radioactive beams using the ISOL (Isotope Separation On-Line) technique. After an upgrade of the "class A" target laboratory at ISOLDE-CERN, a systematic study has been carried out to synthesise an optimised UCX material using CNT (Carbon NanoTubes). In particular, the best grinding parameters have been identified: the speed of the planetary mill, the suitable liquid with low surface tension, powder-WC ball ratio, the grinding time and the grinding cycle. Another grinding method has been investigated to grind uranium dioxide. For this purpose, the target laboratory has been equipped with a new micromill and sieves. A systematic study has also been performed.

At INFN¬ LNL, S. Corradetti has taken the post-doc position in September 2012, one full year after the start of the project.

In the framework of the ActILab activity, several types of advanced materials to be used as ISOL targets have been produced, characterised and tested, in order to find significant correlation between their microstructure and their capacity of releasing radioactive isotopes. The characterisation of irradiated materials in hot cell was performed and the analysis of online tests of new actinide targets has been achieved.

ActILab fulfilled all its planned tasks, and achieved all its milestones and deliverables. Various uranium carbide target materials have been synthesised following new synthetic routes and their physiochemical properties were determined. The characterisation of these target materials were performed before and after irradiation. The isotope yields have been compared between a standard UCx target and a nano-structured UCx target developed in the framework of ActILab using the ISOL technique at ISOLDE. The nano-structured targets displayed better release characteristics as well as increased and steady yields of produced radioisotopes (e.g. 30Na) compared to those of standard UCx targets. An extra meeting has been scheduled in March 2015 beyond the ENSAR project to discuss further dissemination of the results among the participating institutions.

WP09 JRA03-PREMAS made significant progress on two fronts. In order to suppress surface-ionised isobaric contaminations in radioactive ion beams produced with hot-cavity Resonance Ionisation Laser Ion Source (RILIS), a Laser Ion Source and Trap (LIST) has been developed by Mainz University. The first on-line operation of the LIST took place in 2011 for the production of Mg isotopes. In particular, the isotopes 22Mg and 27Mg were produced with a suppression factor of more than 1000 for the isobaric contaminants 22Na and 27Al.

The possibility of performing optical spectroscopy within an expanding gas jet, immediately downstream from a gas cell was explored. Such an environment offers a unique reduction in atomic line-broadening mechanisms due to the low pressure and low temperature. A comparison of the obtained hyperfine structure in 63Cu using the Ti:sapphire laser system in three different environments was performed. The line width in the reference cell (vacuum) is dominated by the laser line-width. The shift in the centre-of-gravity of the structure with respect to the reference scan is most clear for the gas jet, resulting in a Doppler-shifted velocity of ~600 m/s.

Within the framework of PREMAS, a number of new approaches to perform efficient and selective step-wise resonance ionisation spectroscopy of radioactive atoms in supersonic gas jets has been studied at KU Leuven, extending thus the in-gas laser ionisation and spectroscopy (IGLIS) method. The first online test has been performed using the dual-chamber gas cell and a 58Ni(p,n) reaction to produce 58Cu (t1/2=3.2 s) in a two-step ionisation process. A development of laser ionisation schemes of calcium has been carried out by the RILIS team at ISOLDE/CERN. A new way to perform the in-source laser spectroscopy has been recently developed at ISOLDE/CERN by combining the laser selectivity of RILIS with the high-mass resolution of ISOLTRAP.

Construction of the new compact beta spectrometer for precision beta-spectrum shape measurements, including the related electronics for signal processing and read-out software, has been completed (in collaboration with the Jagiellonian University of Kraków). At JYFL, a new laser resonator has been built which utilises the technique of injection locking a bow-tie ring cavity. A Radio Frequency Quadrupole (RFQ) ion-guide system was commissioned and tested at the LISOL facility which combines optimal selection of the ionisation volume for in-gas jet laser spectroscopy experiments.

PREMAS has achieved all milestones and deliverables except for MS108 which aims at achieving polarisation in an online experiment. However, this a priority for the group at JYU-JYFL and work will continue after ENSAR. Progress has been made in reduction of beam contaminations in the gas-cell approach and a laser ionisation scheme of Ho (Z=67) has been developed. Investigations are now ongoing to study the level schemes in the neighbouring rare-earth elements of terbium (Z=65), dysprosium (Z=66), erbium (Z=68) as well as the radioactive element praseodymium (Z=59). The versatility of the ECRIS for production of pure radioactive ion beams of metallic elements has also been studied with many different ECRIS systems and the results have been compared.

WP10 JRA04-INDESYS investigated in the first period CsI(Tl)+LAAPD as detection systems for low-energy γ -rays and high-energy charged particles, as well as phoswiches based on LaBr3+NaI scintillators for detection of high-energy γ -rays. Optical design of a liquid scintillator cell for neutron detection in decay experiments was performed. Furthermore, modelling of nuclear interactions of neutrons in liquid scintillators and of light collection as well as full simulations of a high-energy neutron detector were performed. A full-size scintillation prototype neutron detector was designed

The major achievements of INDESYS in the second period were the tests of CsI(Tl)+LAAPD prototype with high-energy γ -rays and protons, the characterisation of large-volume LaBr3:Ce, the first tests of new scintillation materials (CLYC and GAGG), the test of a LaBr+NaI phoswich prototype with gamma rays. Moreover, the design of a modular neutron detector for beta-decay experiments based on the BC501A liquid scintillator was completed ahead of schedule, as well as the study of light propagation of gamma-rays in LaBr3 detectors in single and phoswich configurations and the detailed optical modelling of a liquid scintillator used as a neutron detector. A study of the passivation of the intrinsic surface of the HPGe detectors was also done. The simulation of full scintillator-based detector concept was accomplished, as well as the simulation of a full timing resistive-plate chamber (tRPC) neutron detector. The construction of a full-size scintillation prototype has been accomplished and in-beam tests of this prototype using quasi-mono-energetic neutrons was performed. Furthermore, a full-size tRPC prototype for high-energy neutron detection has been constructed and in-beam tests of the full-size prototype using quasi-mono-energetic neutrons and protons were performed.

INDESYS made progress without any deviation from original plans and all milestones and deliverables were achieved. This work package served as basis for technical design reports of several detectors: Monster, NeuLAND, PARIS, CALIFA, HECTOR+LaBr3 that are being constructed at ENSAR research infrastructures. Progress was made with Ge-detector housing through development of minimal interacting, passivating cover for Ge detectors. Two prototype detectors, each consisting of 64 CsI crystals with different lengths, were tested and characterised at the Bronowice Cyclotron Centre (CCB), Kraków and later tested in an experiment at GSI, Darmstadt. The properties of several new scintillation inorganic materials for -ray detection were also studied and liquid organic scintillators for neutron detection in decay experiments has been investigated. Furthermore, simulation of a neutron time-of-flight spectrometer based on timing resistive-plate chambers (tRPC) was accomplished and a prototype was constructed and tested.

WP11 JRA05-SiNuRSE Event generators based on realistic physics models have been developed for light- and heavy-ion reactions, for elastic proton scattering and (p,n) reactions in a wide energy range, for beta-decay including delayed γ -ray and neutron emission, for (n,γ ) reactions, and for fusion-evaporation reactions. These were implemented in either developed or improved codes and/or in GEANT4, which was also modified to allow use of reaction databases for low-energy reactions. These models have been benchmarked against a wide set of available experimental data. Furthermore, a platform based on FAIRRoot, a general framework based on a virtual Monte-Carlo implementation, was identified and as a demonstration and development scenario a particular application in a nuclear physics experiment (R3BRoot) was selected. This platform for simulations should make it easy for the user to switch between various modules. These event generators were, and will be, used for the simulation of some complex detection systems.

The benchmarking of the event generator for light-ion induced reactions has been completed. Comparisons with other models available in GEANT4 have been performed. The reproduction of most of the experimental data is found to be significantly improved with the new model. The set of NN effective interactions to cover the energy range from 20 MeV/u to 1 GeV/u was built on. Information to the event generator is now passed over from GEANT4 macros using messengers. The gamma-ray event generator for MF=6 evaluated data has been completed and included in the release of GEANT4.9.5.

The researchers of CIEMAT are members of the GEANT4 collaboration (Hadronic group) and included the software developments in the standard GEANT4 release (GEANT4.9.5 and later versions). Work on the development of the event generator for fusion-evaporation reactions continued in the second period. The team performed also an improvement of the Intra-Nuclear Cascade model for a better prediction of one-nucleon removal channel. The virtual Monte-Carlo platform is now available.

Extensive simulation studies have been performed for designing a Low-Energy Neutron Array (LENA) and for studying the response of the detectors at low-energy thresholds by using the GEANT4 simulation toolkit. Several simulations were performed with regards to detection of heavy ions and light particles emerging from an interaction region and reaching detectors placed before and after magnetic elements.

SiNuRSE developed further event generators based on realistic physics models and standard databases for light-ions (Intra-Nuclear Cascade code), p-A elastic cross sections in a wide energy range, beta-decay processes, and heavy-ion reactions including fusion-evaporation reactions. These were implemented in either developed or improved codes and/or in GEANT4 as discussed above. A website, http://igfae.usc.es/~sinurse/index.php/downloadmenuitem was constructed that could be visited by the community to download the appropriate files for running own simulations through the platform ENSARRoot allowing, among others, simulations for design of complex calorimeter geometries and a detector in a storage ring.

WP12 JRA06-EWIRA has succeeded in designing and constructing a plunger device for fast radioactive beams with a cylindrical endcap allowing for tracking capabilities. The plunger will be used in measurements of transition moments. Also, an off-beam g-ray spectroscopy set-up that will include CLOVER detectors, LaBr3(Ce) or CeBr3 scintillators and a moving tape for radioactivity transport has been prepared and has been installed at a dedicated beam line at IFIN-HH. The beta-decay tape-transport station was installed and commissioned at the Tandem accelerator of IFIN-HH. It was used with an off-beam g-ray spectroscopy set-up installed at IFIN-HH. The beta-decay gamma rays were detected with an array of three Clover detectors mounted in a close geometry.

A working group on developments related to the measurements of static nuclear moments with radioactive beams has been established. In this framework, an experiment has been performed at LNL, Legnaro, Italy for investigating the possibilities of using multi-nucleon transfer reactions for nuclear moment studies of isomeric states.

For study of static nuclear moments with radioactive beams, a combined Tilted Foils (for producing a nuclear spin-polarised ensemble) and β-NMR setup was installed and successfully applied at REX-ISOLDE. In this respect, the main achievements of EWIRA can be considered to be the proof-of-principle experiment with the TDRIV method and the proof-of-principle experiment to polarise radioactive beams with the tilted-foil technique. New experiments with the tilted-foils and the TDRIV techniques were accepted and were performed within the project.

Concerning the new e+e– spectrometer for rare nuclear processes, a Compact Orange-type Positron-Electron spectrometer (COPE) for precise studies of e+e– creation in the energy range of about 10-20 MeV was constructed. The e+e– detection system is based on the design of a MICROMEGAS chamber which has been completed together with the construction of a vacuum chamber for the COPE spectrometer, the development of read-out electronics and the needed electronics and the construction of chambers for the TPC’s. This setup was successfully used in experiments.

A test experiment of CVD diamond detectors with heavy-ion beams was carried out. The designs of an array of CVD diamond pixel detectors and of a new position-sensitive detector for IBA applications were finalised. Ion-bean induced charge test experiments on CVD diamond detectors were performed.

Pixel detectors, based on thin synthetic diamond foils produced by the CVD technique that can detect charged particles at very high rates maintaining excellent timing properties, were used in Coulex experiments. A new version of the generic algorithm of the Coulex analysing programme was implemented under Linux. A GOSIA workshop was organised by the working group in April 2013. The recently obtained Coulex data are be analysed with a yet more improved Coulex programme: http://www.slcj.uw.edu.pl/~pjn/Jacob/.

WP13 JRA07-THEXO has progressed during the ENSAR project without any major deviations from original plans. The groups of Basel, Brussels, and Warsaw have all managed to hire the postdocs to work on the different subtasks. The Vienna Group hired a PhD student instead who did his PhD research on the subtask topic. A collaboration meeting was organised at ECT*, Trento on 24-26 October 2011 following the ECT* workshop on the topic “Nuclear structure seen through ground-state properties of exotic nuclei” held at ECT* on 17-21 October 2011. THEXO organised another workshop at ECT* on 22-24 October 2012.

THEXO has been progressing very well during the lifetime of the ENSAR project. All objectives have been reached and all milestones and deliverables have been fulfilled. The groups involved in THEXO have made a lot of progress resulting in a large number of publications in the framework of ENSAR. Highlights of the THEXO activity are: improvement of particle-vibration coupling model and better treatment of correlations beyond a mean-field. In addition, the possibility to include several quasi-particle excitations allow for better description of odd proton or neutron nuclei. The computer codes as well as results have been published. These involve nuclear structure theoretical models as well as nuclear reaction theory. Two workshops have been organised at ECT*, Trento in 2014.

All of the RIs gave substantially more than the promised beam time. In the following, a highlight per TNA facility (RI) will be given. Performed experiments usually take more than a year to analyse. It is not uncommon in this field of science that the publications appear between one and a half years to two years or more from the time the experiment was performed. Nevertheless, around 200 publications have appeared from ENSAR-supported activities (mainly from experiments at ENSAR research infrastructures in the framework of TransNational Access Activities and also from research performed in the framework of Joint Research Activities) many in high impact journals, including Nature, Physical Review Letters, etc. In the following, some highlights per TNA facility (RI) will be given.

WP14 TNA01-GANIL improved the detection system of the magnetic spectrometer VAMOS doubling its acceptance (VAMOS++). This benefitted some of the experiments performed with the facility. As example, isotopic distributions of fission-fragment yields were measured in inverse kinematics of transfer-induced reactions on uranium.

In the second reporting period, the facility was operated for only 5 months between March 2012 to July 2012 and again for 1 month July 2013. During this period there were two major highlights obtained from user-supported projects:
- A study of nuclear shapes and deformations in neutron-rich Os nuclei
- Mirror energy differences and isospin-symmetry breaking in 23Na and 23Mg
In the third reporting period, AGATA was installed and commissioned at GANIL. Tests made in coincidence with VAMOS spectrometer yielded excellent high-resolution -ray spectra (e.g. 158Er and 98Zr) promising a very successful experimental campaign at GANIL in the next 4 years.

Other highlights in this period are:
- Evolution of nuclear structure far from stability studied in the reaction 16C(d,p)17C,
- Study of the p-n T=0 and T=1 pairing in the reactions 48Cr(p,3He), (d,α) 56Ni(p,3He), (d,α),
- Measurement of the fission time of 238U+76Ge  Z=126 nucleus using XK fluorescence of atoms,
- Study of the spin-aligned neutron-proton paired phase in 96Cd using EXOGAM+Nwall+Diamant detectors, and
- Alpha clustering phenomena in the 40Ca, 44Ca, 48Ca isotopes.

WP15 TNA02-GSI has, besides giving beam time for ENSAR-supported experiments, prepared in the first period for the AGATA experimental campaign at GSI in the ENSAR framework. The holding structure was installed and the honey combs were aligned making them ready for installation of the detectors, which were installed later on. The electronics were mounted and cables and glass fibres connected making AGATA ready for the experimental campaign.
Beam was available during the second reporting period (i.e. March 2012 to August 2013) only in 2012. Beam time delivered to the users was slightly more in 2012 than in 2011, i.e. 197 days of SIS and/or UNILAC operation. UNILAC beam was devoted – essentially for the whole period – to a production run for element Z=119. An impressive upper limit for the production cross section of 60 fb was reached. This experiment took place at the Recoil Separator for Transactinide Chemistry and Physics, TASCA. At the end of the beam time period, three additional weeks, which have not been foreseen in the original planning, were made available for the U261 experiment on X-Ray fingerprinting of element Z=115. Second, the AGATA beam time was limited to 28 days because of a very tight schedule at SIS with additional two major users. A large number of remarkable scientific results were obtained. Some of these results are of particular importance for future nuclear-physics studies later at FAIR or were even mentioned in the international press.

During the ENSAR project, the EXL physics programme with the first reaction experiment with a radioactive ion beam, 56Ni, in a storage ring ever was started. The experiment was performed to determine the matter radius of 56Ni by proton elastic scattering and investigate the isoscalar giant resonances in 58Ni by inelastic -scattering in inverse kinematics. The experiment is the first of its kind and represents an essential milestone towards the realisation of the EXL project at FAIR.

WP16 TNA03-LNL-LNS The LNL-LNS facilities have given beam time for ENSAR-supported experiments. The campaign of AGATA detector array at LNL was completed during the first reporting period after which AGATA was transferred to GSI (see above).

An extensive experimental programme has been pursued with AGATA at LNL among which the study of the structure beyond the N=50 closure in n-rich nuclei in the vicinity of 78Ni. This was addressed through determination of the single-particle or collective character of low-lying states in n-rich nuclei beyond N=50. The measurements were performed in conjunction with the PRISMA spectrometer to select on the isotope of interest. Good mass separation and good Doppler-corrected energy resolution were achieved allowing the determination of γ ray spectra for specific isotopes, such as 83Ge (N=51). During the second period, the experiments performed at LNL and LNS focused on nuclear structure and applications.
One of highlights made in the third period is the accurate measurements of the fusion cross sections of the 24Mg + 30Si reaction at seven 24Mg bombarding energies around and below the Coulomb barrier. Fusion hindrance was observed for this large positive Q-value system, together with an astrophysical S-factor maximum which is the best developed maximum detected thus far.

WP17 TNA04-JYFL has a strong programme oriented towards the study of the shell-structure and influence of pairing interaction in super-heavy nuclei. With in-beam spectroscopy at the high-Z limit, the reaction 208Pb(50Ti,2n)256Rf ( = 17 nb) was studied to investigate the rotational properties of the Z=104 nucleus 256Rf. A group from Strasbourg University contributed to the 50Ti beam development. With Gammapool detectors in conjunction with the set-up of the Recoil-Ion Transport Unit (RITU) and the GREAT spectrometer, which allows for detection of γ -ray, conversion-electron, and alpha decays in coincidence with recoil nuclei, it was possible to obtain the X-ray and -ray spectrum for 256Rf. This could be possible only because high-rate measurements could be performed with digital electronics and an advanced data-acquisition system.

During the second period, A clear highlight (Project JR111, P1) was the long-awaited first observation of excited states in the Z=104 nucleus 256Rf. Published in Physical Review Letters, the manuscript was selected as an “Editor’s Suggestion” and for a “Viewpoint” article on the American Physical Society website Physics (“Putting a spin on super-heavy elements” http://physics.aps.org/articles/v5/73). In addition to these, eight conference proceedings or technical design reports have been co-authored by the group members.


A highlight of the experiments supported by ENSAR in the third period was the first observation of yrast states in 74Sr, a nucleus beyond the N=Z line, enabling extraction of triple-energy differences for the analysis of Coulomb-energy differences in A=74 nuclei at the N=Z line. Another highlight regarding outreach was the organisation of the open day on 26 September 2014 on the theme: “Jyväskylä - City of Light - Art Works and Accelerator-Based Physics”, which attracted 1150 visitors.

WP18 TNA05-KVI allowed a group from Kraków to perform an experiment in which the dynamics of 3- and 4-nucleon systems were studied in the elastic scattering and breakup of deuteron beam scattered at an incident energy of 160 MeV from LH2 and LD2 targets.

Differential cross sections for the elastic scattering and breakup were measured with the detection system BINA allowing large phase-space coverage. Clean particle identification with low background and good energy calibration allowed determination of precise kinematical information. The data have been analysed to learn more about the three-body force in nuclei.

During the second period, important research results from the supported user-projects came out:
- β-delayed α-decay study of 16N using the implantation method: improvement of the understanding of oxygen production in stars and stellar evolution in general by determining the branching ratio for α-decay on an absolute scale and measuring the energy spectrum of the α-particles down to low energies.
- Study of electric dipole strength below the particle threshold (p,p´γ): the experiment used a proton beam to scatter off 140Ce in order to clarify the origin of the splitting of the pygmy dipole resonance.
- Radiation hardness of avalanche photodiodes, radiation damage and defect studies in PWO crystals, and hadron response of inorganic scintillating fibres: in irradiations by protons, all samples of Large-Area Avalanche Photodiodes (LAAPDs) and optical glue, which will be used to attach LAAPDs to PWO crystals, demonstrated sufficient radiation hardness, as required by the PANDA experiment.
- Experiments for real time in-vivo dosimetry for ion therapy: the measurements aimed at measuring prompt and secondary γ-rays as well as fast and thermalised neutrons for different target geometries with and without shielding.
One of the highlights of the experiments supported by ENSAR at KVI was the range assessment in particle therapy based on prompt γ-ray timing measurements, which appeared in the literature recently: C. Golnik et al., Phys. Med. Biol. 59 (2014) 5309. In this experiment, it was shown that determination of proton range deviations of 2 mm within a few seconds seems feasible through measuring γ-ray arrival times from the particle track.

WP19 TNA06-ISOLDE One of the highlights achieved in by ENSAR-supported experiment is the high-precision measurement of the mass and half-life of 82Zn (Z=30,N=52) with the ISOLTRAP set-up. This nucleus is relevant for the nuclear shell model because of its proximity to the N=50 shell closure, for the composition of neutron stars, and for the models of rapid-neutron capture for nucleosynthesis. To achieve this, the combined ISOLDE excellent technical know-how of the neutron-converter, quartz transfer line, and isotope-selective laser ionisation were used.

The ISOLDE experimental campaign 2012, which closed in December, was very successful. Fifty one experiments and as many as 10 test runs were scheduled, of which a large majority collected very good data using dozens of different beams. An exceptional number of new groups and new setups performed successful studies at ISOLDE. To these belonged the groups from Bucharest, Edinburgh, and Warsaw, with respectively their setup for gamma and beta decay (used to study the decay of 34Mg), optical time-projection chamber (decay of 6He), and gas target for astrophysics studies (44Ti from PSI). Also, for the first time the Kraków and Milano groups used MINIBALL for pilot studies of incomplete fusion with 98Rb.

Among the new methods, the active chamber MAYA was used for the first time at ISOLDE by the Leuven and GANIL groups with a 12Be beam. The REX reaction chamber saw first radioactive beam studies for Lund and Tsukuba experiments on 21Na and 30Mg, respectively. The Saarbrucken solid-state group recorded the first spectra with their new online diffusion chamber. Two test experiments with polarised beams obtained also very good results. The first used a new chamber for beta-NMR in “bad” vacuum coupled to COLLAPS, which led to the first-ever beta-NMR resonance (of 31Mg) in a liquid, paving the way for biological studies. The second obtained for the first time polarised nuclei (8Li) with tilted foils installed behind REX, with the polarisation proven via beta-NMR. Finally, the CRIS experiment reached the expected detection efficiency and studied Fr isotopes down to 202Fr.

To the remaining successes belonged ISOLTRAP investigations of masses of very exotic 52-54Ca. ISOLTRAP’s electrostatic traps joined RILIS and the WINDMILL alpha-decay station to record the hyperfine structure of At and Au isotopes. Coulomb excitation of the troublesome 72Kr finally took place. Miniball was also used in studies of Coulomb-excitations of Cd, Sm, Po, and Rn isotopes, and for transfer reactions on 72Zn. COLLAPS got very good laser-spectroscopy results on K, Ca, and Cd isotopes. Successful emission-channelling spectra were recorded on the challenging 11Be. WITCH had a high-statistics run with 35Ar and the total absorption spectrometer (TAS) took data on Hg isotopes after a break of a few years. Studies of -delayed proton emission from the halo nucleus 11Be were also performed.

A versatile setup able to measure beta, gamma and charged particles by using different elements and configurations was realised at ISOLDE in the third reporting period and was used successfully used to perform experiments in 2014. One of the highlights achieved by ENSAR-supported experiments was to measure the hyperfine structure of astatine isotopes using the RILIS lasers.

WP20 TNA07-ALTO has succeeded in producing the first ion beam of 84Ga (Z=31,N=53) obtained by highly selective laser ionisation. This was part of a concerted effort of ALTO group to improve the availability of exotic beams at its facility. The high selectivity of laser ionisation compared to surface ionisation could be demonstrated by measuring the β-gated γ -spectrum. The γ-decay in 84Ge following β-decay of 84Ga is strongly observed.

Using the time-dependent recoil in vacuum method on H-like 24Mg ions at ALTO, it was possible to perform a high-accuracy measurement of the g-factor of the first 2+ state of 24Mg. This was essential to constrain the theory and the result was found in very good agreement with USD shell model.

Potential Impact:
Impact
Complementary capabilities
In the ENSAR integrating activity the strongest and most immediately felt impact is the one on the users of the infrastructures. ENSAR infrastructures provide the largest palette of stable and radioactive beams worldwide with the best beam qualities considering aspects as purity, intensity, emittance, etc. to users. This clearly requires a European approach rather than a national or local one, because none of the European countries has infrastructures that provide the full palette but rather only a part of it. In addition, the uniqueness of some of the instrumentation available at ENSAR infrastructures gives these an edge in comparison to infrastructures elsewhere in the world. Clearly, by having such a broad and excellent network of research infrastructures that is unparalleled in the world the European user had an edge on the competitors (American and Japanese, in particular) internationally.

Impacts of the transnational access activities
The impact of access on users from nuclear structure and nuclear astrophysics was enormous, in particular if this is taken in combination with the RTD planned to improve the quality of the research infrastructures and the equipment with which the experiments were performed. This was enhanced with the ENRI agreement in which was established a Facility Coordination Group (FCG). The FCG goal was to activate and promote access to the joint ENSAR facilities and coordinate and harmonise between them in regard to scientific programmes and proposals for access. Furthermore, the ENSAR research infrastructures had an excellent track record for operating smoothly and efficiently providing the users with the beams of the wanted specifications and in the foreseen time windows. This did not concern users in nuclear physics and nuclear astrophysics only, but also in multidisciplinary research and industrial applications using light- and heavy-ion beams. Globally, the ENSAR infrastructures provided more beam time to more users than foreseen at the beginning of the project.

Impacts of the networking activities
The impacts of the networking activities are also large since they brought together experts of the fields with the aim to improve the facilities and increase their use.
For example, NA02-ECOS brought together and coordinated the expertise that is available in the European countries to plan and optimise the research and development activities needed in all aspects related to the production and use of high-intensity heavy-ion beams and high-power thin targets. It will have impact on the various stable-ion-beam facilities in Europe by optimising the resources and manpower for their upgrade and development to improve their scientific output.
The concentration of ISOL facilities in Europe is unique in the world, and coordination of their development work within NA03-EURISOL NET strengthened Europe’s technological excellence. All major European ISOL installations that are research infrastructures in ENSAR benefited from this network: ALTO, SPES/EXCYT (LNL-LNS), SPIRAL1&2 (GANIL), ISOLDE and IGISOL (JYFL). It will also help lay the groundwork for the future ISOL facility EURISOL.
NA04-ATHENA was a networking activity for all nuclear astrophysicists in Europe. They discussed strategies for studying nuclear structure and reactions of importance for clarifying cosmic events and nucleosynthesis of the elements at different astronomical sites.
NA05-EGAN coordinated and optimised the use of valuable European resources, such as Ge-detector arrays, in ENSAR-TNA laboratories. It also enhanced synergies among researchers on a broad European scale to ensure the sharing, design, construction and maintenance of detectors and associated equipment in a coordinated approach. EGAN encouraged and supported interdisciplinary ventures for the use of gamma-ray spectroscopy techniques in other fields.
NA06-EFINION put special emphasis on multidisciplinary and application-oriented activities at stable and radioactive-ion-beam facilities of ENSAR. It undertook outreach activities to disseminate ENSAR applications to the public.

Impacts of the joint research activities
The Joint Research Activities had direct influence on the quality of the infrastructures.
JRA01-ARES strove to make higher intensities for highly charged ion beams available from the accelerators of the ENSAR infrastructures. Stable beam and in-flight separation of exotic beams benefited from these developments. This was achieved by improving ECR ion sources. Many of the ion-beam applications in ENSAR laboratories will benefit from these developments including commercial collaborations in ESA-related projects and materials research.

JRA01-ARES together with JRA02-ActILab strongly impacted the production of exotic radioactive ion beams at the European ISOL facilities such as ALTO, EXCYT/SPES, IGISOL, HIE-ISOLDE and SPIRAL2 regarding their intensity, purity and reliability. This was achieved through the cooperation of the different European beam-development groups (GANIL, INFN-Legnaro, CERN, IPN-Orsay and PSI) who will share their expertise and experience in development of new actinide targets.

JRA03-PREMAS benefited all ENSAR infrastructures, which have low-energy radioactive-ion beams. This was achieved through improvements in efficient laser ionisation, charge-breeding ECR ion sources, high-resolution mass separation, ion cooling and accumulation as well as non-destructive diagnostics.

JRA04-INDESYS brought together the expertise in the community to improve the design of gamma and neutron detectors based on scintillation materials. The development of novel technologies based on innovative or already existing materials and photo-sensor devices was crucial for experiments improving the present capabilities of European Nuclear Physics infrastructures. These novel detection technologies have impact on applications to industry and society in general. They will be profitable for improving many applications based on the use of neutron and gamma radiation (e.g. tracking and imaging techniques). They also have a clear impact on many applications like medical diagnostics, structure inspection, radiation monitoring and many more. The possible alliances with industries, in particular in the case of JRA04-INDESYS, will result in quick applications and larger benefit to society.

The immediate and direct impact of JRA05-SiNuRSE is on preparation of experiments at ENSAR infrastructures and similar facilities. The general transparent simulation platforms will be used to carry out simulations with the current detector set-ups in order to understand what the response of the detectors is, what sections of the phase-space will be covered and starting from theoretical predictions what experimental results to expect. JRA05-SiNuRSE impacts on simulations of future detector set-ups as well as nuclear detector technology for societal, environmental and industrial applications.

Many JRA and NA activities in ENSAR, especially JRA06-EWIRA, have a large impact on nuclear physics facilities in Central and South-Eastern Europe. Those smaller-scale facilities are equally important to the European physics communities and their involvement in the activities related to ENSAR’s TNAs would bring together the entire European Nuclear Physics community. The ENSAR project contributed to the synergy of the activities and research performed at those facilities and at the ENSAR’s TNAs. It helped to enlarge and restructure the European Research Area in nuclear physics.
The impact of EWIRA on the nuclear physics facilities in Central and South-Eastern Europe was two-fold:
- preserving and enhancing the existing communities in Central and South-Eastern Europe by attracting and educating young scientists to achieve the desirable skills needed by TNA groups.
- developing instruments or experimental methods intended for the present ENSAR TNAs.
The ultimate goal is to bring at least some of the most advanced facilities from Central and South-Eastern Europe into the European Research Infrastructures.

JRA07-THEXO gave a unique opportunity for a European-wide collaboration of nuclear structure and reactions theorists and astrophysicists. It was organised around a few strong participating European institutions and also involved a large number of associated partners. Moreover, it fostered and promoted collaboration between those theorists, who were working separately and often were not directly involved in providing support to infrastructures. Thus, it focused the European theory efforts on goals directly supporting experimental activities. The close collaboration of nuclear structure and reaction experts and the use of supercomputing power provided an invaluable synergy. Before ENSAR, such a streamlined theoretical support was not available at European laboratories. However, analogous well-funded efforts have already been started in the United States (e.g. the UNEDF collaboration) and Japan (a new theory group at RIKEN). This results in draining European young talents towards research positions overseas. The concerted action of this JRA provided attractive research opportunities for young researchers in Europe.

Contribution to socioeconomic impacts

Transnational access activities
The socioeconomic impacts of the ENSAR research infrastructures and R&D are varied. They span impacts on multidisciplinary research and industrial applications through granting access (free of charge or at partial/full operational cost) to communities of other scientific disciplines and industry. More than 20% of the beam time at the ENSAR research infrastructures is devoted to solid-state physics and life sciences with broad societal benefits. The range of use of beams, stable or radioactive, is indeed broad spanning research on and/or production of nano- and micro-scale porous films and membranes or microstructures, increasing capacity of battery storage, semiconductors and electronics radiation hardness, materials science, atomic physics, condensed-matter physics, biophysics, radiobiology and radiotherapy, collaboration with ESA and EADS ‘European Aeronautic Defence and Space’ company for testing electronic components for space applications and space research, and last but not least the safeguard of Cultural Heritage masterpieces and archaeological artefacts.

The ENSAR research infrastructures are all located in regions where they have large impact on training engineers and scientists for industry, and have strong impact on employment of highly-qualified personnel. They also collaborate with local industry increasing the capacity of these to compete with national and international ones. They fulfil the role of breeding grounds for spin-off businesses and industries which invigorate high-tech activities in their regions. Examples abound, e.g. two spin-offs from KVI-RUG (Groningen), companies for applying nuclear science techniques in environmental, agricultural and industrial problems (Medusa and The Soil Company); two from JYFL-JYU (Jyväskylä), a leading NanoScience Centre in Finland and an X-ray tomography facility; two from GANIL (Caen), PANTECHNIK - the world-leading ion-source company - and Quertech Ingenierie - expert in the innovative techniques increasing hardness of aluminium; two from ALTO-CNRS, ISITECH - a company dedicated to the development of electronic cards – and ACS - a company specialised in cryogenic acceleration and more for LNL/LNS-INFN and GSI, in particular regarding medical applications related to ion-beam therapy. Patents that are produced through research at these infrastructures are usually shared with the industries for the benefit of both; a number of examples exist for GANIL, GSI, KVI-RUG, and LNL/LNS-INFN.
The ENSAR infrastructures participate, with local research institutions and industries, in consortia whose aim is to promote the transfer of knowledge, technological innovation and, more in general, the development of the regions. For example, GANIL is one of the three members of “Normandie Incubation” whose main mission is to help the creation of new start-ups for the valorisation of activities of public laboratories in Normandy. Since its creation, nearly 50 projects started, generating the creation of more than 140 new jobs in the region.

Joint Research Activities
The ENSAR JRAs as well as R&D at the research infrastructures lead to cutting-edge technologies with EU outreach, that produce stronger socioeconomic returns on investments. Among the most important impacts are on technologies regarding development of detectors and electronics, such as detectors for neutron and gamma radiation in connection with medical imaging and diagnostics (e.g. PET and CT scans), dosimetry instruments for radiation damage and detection of contraband materials, explosives, radioactive material, structural inspection, radiation monitoring and many more.
Another application of nuclear science of strong impact is the use of radioactive isotopes such as produced at the ENSAR laboratories. These have been used for condensed-matter investigations (e.g. diffusion processes) for a long time. Nuclei are now being routinely used as probes of their environment in metals and semiconductors via various methods. These techniques have also been applied to the study of complex bio-molecules, surfaces, and interfaces. This spin-off from nuclear physics research has been increasing steadily in scope. With the routine availability of high-purity radioactive ion beams from isotope separators the possibilities for such investigations have been greatly expanded, permitting technologically ever more demanding experiments. In particular, the use of on-line isotope separation at, e.g. ISOLDE-CERN, IGISOL at JYFL-JYU and SPIRAL at GANIL facilities, has demonstrated the great potential of nuclear probes for solid-state physics research and more recently in biophysics research.
There are further applications pursued at ENSAR research infrastructures with major potential implications for society, e.g. i) nuclear-waste management and methodological developments useful for theoretical evaluation of waste incineration and ii) development of nuclear technology through material research necessitated by ageing of structure materials of fission/fusion reactors due to nuclear reactions. This goes hand in hand with education and training of young nuclear physicists, which is relevant not only for health-related applications, but also for the development of novel nuclear technologies, one alternative currently discussed to face the problem of greenhouse gases. Another aspect of the socioeconomic impact is exemplified by the interesting results of a study on the impact of GANIL on the region. This showed that GANIL generated more than 250 direct jobs and 350 indirect jobs, and injects more than 32 M€ in the local economy each year, through its running costs and the salaries of its employees and those of associated laboratories. It was estimated that each € that is invested by the Region Basse Normandie for GANIL is reimbursed locally within 3 years.

Dissemination
The participants in this integrating activity, representing large research infrastructures and university groups participating in ENSAR, have as their ultimate objective publication of their scientific results in renowned international journals, and, where applicable, dissemination of these results to other scientific communities and the public as well.
For each work package, its Steering Committee (SC) discussed the scientific results and the best possible way of publishing them with general consensus among the participants in that activity. The reports of the activities that were produced for the EC were placed on the website of ENSAR. At least 200 publications from scientific work supported by ENSAR within TNAs and JRAs mostly have appeared in high-quality journals.

The ENSAR website was set up to record and disseminate the technical advances and a webpage was devoted to each of the activities with links to the participating institutes and university groups.
The dissemination of knowledge within the community took place also via numerous workshops and collaboration meetings. In 2013, a town meeting was organised for the whole community wherein the achievements and highlights of each work package were presented and discussed. About 100 scientists participated in this conference.

In addition, specific tools were developed and are now available for the general use of the community:
• NA ECOS: a European chart of stable beams for a better preparation of experiments in European infrastructures
• JRA SiNuRSE: a platform for simulations (ENSARRoot) for nuclear structure and reaction studies
• JRA THEXO: a versatile code package, GECCCOS (General Coupled-Channel Code System), a modern tool for the calculation of nuclear reactions performed at radioactive ion-beam facilities.

The participants in ENSAR deem the publication of results of importance not only for the scientific community, but also for reaching out to society and industry. The multidisciplinary applications and some of the work packages have direct benefit to society. The main action of NA FISCO in order to disseminate nuclear physics towards the general public was to organise a common action with the Nuclear Physics European Collaboration Committee (NuPECC), with the translation of the NUPEX web site in several European languages (Dutch, French, Italian, Polish, Romanian, and Spanish).
The NA EFINION participated in the outreach activities to disseminate ENSAR applications to the public through the Catalogue of multidisciplinary applications-oriented research activities of ENSAR. A Communication Day at the European Parliament was also organised by the NA EFINION to establish face-to-face dialogue between nuclear scientists and policy makers.

Furthermore, during the ENSAR project, most partner institutions performed many outreach activities of a large variety in order to explain science to the general public. As examples:
• Science picnic in Warsaw, Poland
• Open doors in GANIL (France) and KVI (The Netherlands)
• Visit of the LNL and LNS infrastructures via Google Street View (Italy)
• GSI Scientists Video on YouTube (Germany)
• Researcher’s Night, in Italy, Poland and Romania

In total, about 100 dissemination actions occurred during the ENSAR project.

Exploitation of results
The results of the ENSAR project are exploited for the optimisation and upgrade of the ENSAR infrastructures. These results will be further exploited in the coming years and will benefit future experiments in fundamental and applied science.
Three main domains of applications will benefit from ENSAR studies:
Radiobiology
Most of the ENSAR infrastructures (e.g. GANIL, GSI, KVI, LNL/LNS-INFN) are strongly involved in radiobiological and medical research also with the aim to use the results in hadron therapy and radiotherapy. For example, the Heidelberg Ion-beam Therapy centre (HIT) was constructed in close collaboration with a world leader in that field, i.e. GSI. GANIL started a research programme on radioisotopes as a local network on therapy with heavy ions that is now emerging.

Space research
ESA (European Space Agency) has contracts with most of ENSAR’s infrastructures to study effects of radiation on components of equipment that will be sent on space missions as well as on biological material. Having to face a broad spectrum of ionising cosmic radiation both in species and energies it is essential to test these components within the full broad spectrum requiring the use of several of ENSAR’s infrastructures.

Solid-state/material and biophysics studies with radioactive probes
In materials research, studies into the next generation of multiferric materials and compound semiconductors using radioactive probes at ISOLDE have implications for future storage media and sensors. Biophysics research concentrates on the study of proteins using radioactive ion beams to investigate the biochemical properties of heavy metals such as Cd, Hg and Pb – which are well known to play roles in areas such as auto-immune deficiency, cancer and disorders such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. Furthermore, investigating the removal from water of metallic toxins – using functionalised magnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles, has been quite successful and received a patent.

The concrete exploitation of the ENSAR foreground through patents and transfers of knowledge, for instance, will be developed during the coming years thanks to the innovation officers of each institution.

List of Websites:

http://www.ensarfp7.eu/

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