The new large-scale international facility for antiproton and ion research in Europe, FAIR

Full text: FAIR is currently the largest project in nuclear and particle physics worldwide, with investment costs of 1.6B euro in its first phase. It has been founded by Finland, France, Germany, India, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovenia and Sweden in Oct. 2010. The facility will provide the international scientific community with a unique and technically innovative particle accelerator system to perform cutting-edge research in the sciences concerned with the basic structure of matter in: nuclear and particle physics, atomic and anti-matter physics, high density plasma physics, and applications in condensed matter physics, biology and the bio-medical sciences. The work horse of FAIR will be a 1.1 km circumference double ring of rapidly cycling 100 and 300 Tm synchrotrons, which will be used to produce high intensity secondary beams of anti-protons and very short-lived radioactive ions. A subsequent suite of cooler and storage rings will deliver anti-proton and heavy-ion beams of unprecedented quality regarding intensity and resolution. Large experimental facilities are presently being prototyped by the APPA, CBM, NuSTAR and PANDA Collaborations to be used by a global community of more than 3000 scientists from 2018. (author)