GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research

The GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt is a research institution that was founded in 1969 as the Society for Heavy Ion Research (GSI ) to conduct research on and with heavy ion accelerators. It is the only major research center in Hesse.

Details on the company

Shareholders are the Federal Republic of Germany with 90 percent, the state of Hesse with 8 percent and the federal states of Rhineland -Palatinate and Thuringia with 1 percent. The center is a member of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres.

Your current name was given to set up on 7 October 2008, in order to highlight the Helmholtz Association nationwide and international awareness.

Major Appliances

The GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research has currently three accelerator facilities:

• The UNILAC is a linear accelerator, the ionized atoms (ions) can accelerate up to about 20 % of the speed of light. With ions in this energy range a variety of experiments are already possible, which led to the discovery of the superheavy elements Bohrium, Hassium, Meitnerium, Darmstadium, Roentgenium and Copernicium with atomic numbers 107 to 112. In addition, the UNILAC serves as an injector for the
• SIS18, a synchrotron, the ions up to 90 % the speed of light speed (corresponding to a magnetic rigidity of 18 Tm);
• The ESR is a storage ring, which may if necessary take up and store the accelerated ions from the SIS.

In addition, a number of large experimental facilities are operated. These include:

• SHIP, an electromagnetic velocity filter for separation and identification of products from the fusion of nuclei to superheavy elements;
• FOPI, a large particle detector for the study of the physics of nuclear reactions;
• HADES, a di -electron spectrometer to study the properties of hadrons, especially at high pressures and temperatures;
• FRS ( the fragment ) that can be used for the production of radioactive isotopes and various fission and fusion products;
• HITRAP, an experimental system for deceleration and storage of highly charged ions;
• An irradiation station for tumor therapy with accelerated carbon ions;
• Participation in the ALICE detector of the European research center CERN.

In addition to the ion accelerators and large-scale experiments are located at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research, two high-energy laser systems for the production of hot and dense plasmas:

• Nhelix reach capacities of up to 10 gigawatts ( Nanosecond High Energy Laser for Heavy Ion Experiments);
• PHELIX is the " big brother " of the nhelix and to provide services to a petawatt ( Petawatt High Energy Laser for Heavy Ion Experiments).

Research

The built at the GSI experimental facilities are operated in cooperation with about 1,200 researchers. The focus is on the atomic and nuclear physics, plasma physics and materials research.

One of the great successes of the former Society for Heavy Ion Research include the synthesis and proof of elements Bohrium, Hassium, Meitnerium, Darmstadium, Roentgenium and Copernicium. It was also with the heavy ion therapy, a treatment method against tumors developed and tested.

• Examples of experimental stations at GSI

Treatment center for heavy ion therapy with pattern mask for irradiation of brain tumors

History

On the initiative of the Hessian universities in Darmstadt, Frankfurt and Marburg, the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research as mbH ( GSI) was founded on 17 December 1969. As the site is a wooded area in the north of Darmstadt was chosen. The construction costs amounted to about 180 million DM UNILAC, developed by Christoph Schmelzer, 1971, the first Managing Director of the GSI was implemented in the first part of the accelerator facility. The plant supplied first ion beams for experiments from 1975.

In the 1980s, several superheavy elements were first synthesized with the beam of the UNILAC at GSI. At this time the ring accelerator SIS18 and the experimental storage ring ESR were also planned, implemented, and finally commenced operations in 1990. Scientific Directors were then Gisbert to Putlitzstrasse (1978-1983) and Paul Kienle ( 1984-1992 ). Already under Paul Kienle's successor, Hans Joachim Specht (1992-1999) began a process of discussion in order to further expand the accelerator facilities and experimental facilities at GSI, in the tenure of Walter Henning (1999-2007) in the project proposal for the Facility for Antiproton and Ion research (FAIR) resulted.

The International FAIR accelerator facility

In February 2003, the Federal Government gave an assurance that the expansion of the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research, an international accelerator facility for research with ion and antiproton beams FAIR ( Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research) is funded at 75 % of Germany. 65 % is for the federal government, 10 % to the State of Hesse. The remaining 25 % of the costs to be borne by international partners, Finland, France, India, Poland, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sweden and Slovenia. The total cost is estimated at 1.6 billion euros.

In November 2007, a physicist Symposium and an event took place in Darmstadt, was released in the course of the parties involved in planning a communiqué on the joint construction of FAIR. On October 29, 2012 presented representatives of the city of Darmstadt FAIR GmbH planning permission for the construction of new large-scale research facility. It is planned to complete the basic parts of this center until 2018. In 2017 the first experiments can be carried out from the year.

The centerpiece is a running with superconducting magnets, the double ring accelerator (SIS 100/300 ). This will come to a circumference of 1083.6 m. The existing GSI facility with the heavy ion synchrotron SIS 18 serves as a pre-accelerator for the new FAIR accelerator complex. At the center of the synchrotron double-ring system SIS 100 and SIS 300 is to this join: the high-energy storage ring HESR, the Collector Ring CR and the Recycled Experimental Storage Ring Resr, the new experimental storage ring NESR and the super fragment separator SFRS. You can use up to five major research programs are carried out in parallel with different requirements. Because of financial conditions may differ from the components initially only planned SIS 100, HESR, CR and SFRS and a measuring hall be realized with experiments at a fixed target for nuclear matter studies ( Modularized Start Version).

The project aims to provide new insights into the structure of matter and the evolution of the universe, but also work in the application and innovation. The plant is to win with high-energy ion beams insights into the formation of the heavy elements and clarify fundamental questions about the strong force between the elementary building blocks of matter. In addition, should be further investigated by the generation of a quark-gluon plasma, a state of matter that existed fractions of a second after the Big Bang at the origin of the universe for a short time. Decelerated antiprotons allow the measurement of anti- atoms ( anti-hydrogen ) as at the Antiproton Decelerator. Of these, the physicists hope to draw conclusions about symmetry violations in the natural laws of our world, a world that consists of antimatter. The experimental program at FAIR therefore based on four topics: nuclear structure, nuclear astrophysics, and reactions ( NuSTAR collaboration), nuclear matter ( baryons ) experiments (CBM Collaboration), Hadron Physics ( PANDA collaboration) as well as experiments from nuclear, plasma, materials research and Biophysics ( APPA collaboration).

Structurally, the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research GmbH, an independent, the first shareholders of the GmbH, Germany, Russia, India, Romania and a Swedish- Finnish consortium were. After commitment of financial contributions from abroad, the FAIR GmbH was founded on October 4, 2010. The first scientific director of FAIR is Boris Sharkov.

Milestones

Others

The GSI has its access via the Darmstadt district Wixhausen. But the site itself is located on the boundary of the district Arheilgen. Since 1992, GSI uses a code from the neighboring village of Messel. When switching to four-digit extension through elections, it was necessary to obtain a two-digit number, this was no longer possible in the Darmstadt network. Maintaining a three-digit number would have led to more than 16-digit number combinations and would have been unable in the then international direct dial traffic.