Capture, ionization and trapping of isotopes for fundamental physics

The work of this Accreditation to Supervise Research has been based essentially on the ISOLDE facility at CERN, Switzerland, and GANIL, in Caen France. Each studies a different aspect of the process chain used in the so-called Isotope Separation On Line (ISOL) method to achieve the goals of the experiments performed in these facilities. Two main categories of experiments are carried out there: on the one hand, accuracy experiments with isotopes trapped at very low energies, allowing to probe the hypotheses of nuclear physics models or of the Standard Model of particle physics, and on the other hand, experiments with re-accelerated beams at a few MeV per nucleon, allowing the study of the nuclear structure of exotic nuclei, and of nuclear reactions of astrophysical interest. The manuscript is organized in 1 introductory chapter, and 3 main chapters: the first one deals with the production and ionization techniques, the second one with the trapping techniques, and the third one with the application of these techniques to a very fundamental physics experiment, opening on perspectives on the research project. Each chapter starts with a very general introduction of the subject, then develops the works to which my contribution was remarkable: either because I supervised them, or because I carried them out myself, or because I contributed significantly to them, in collaboration or under the supervision of a supervisory team. A detailed reading of all the referenced articles is not required, as the most important results are summarized in this manuscript. The exercise of synthesizing the results of this work has often brought to light new insights, or highlighted partial results that have not yet been published, prompting further investigation of the topics addressed. These are discussed in greater detail in the chapters. Apart from these subjects, all the works presented here refer to published and duly cited works, of which a significant part was realized within the framework of theses that I supervised or co-supervised and/or within the framework of projects that I coordinated (for example the EMILIE project - Enhanced Multi-Ionization of short Lived Isotopes for Eurisol, or the MORA project - Matter's Origin from Radioactivity) A detailed CV is available in appendix. (author)