Nuclear physics experiment for hadrontherapy application

Nuclear fragmentation processes are relevant in different fields of basic research and applied physics and are of particular interest for light ion tumour therapy by means of light ions beam, and for space radiation protection applications. The FIRST experiment at SIS accelerator of GSI laboratory in Darmstadt, has been designed for the measurement of different ions fragmentation cross sections at different energies between 100 and 1000A MeV. The first data taking of the FIRST experiment was carried out in summer 2011 and will be focused on the analysis of the 200-400 A MeV 12C beam fragmentation on thin (5mm) graphite target. The experiment is performed by an international collaboration made of institutions from Germany, France and Italy. A total of 33 shifts were granted for the measurement of the C+C, C+Au and O+C reactions during summer 2011.