Future high intensity ISOL facilities: Selected current R and D topics and possible synergies with other projects

The long-term future of ISOL facilities will be governed by the quest for ever increasing secondary beam intensities. One important aspect concerns a new generation of high-power driver accelerators which aim at multi-megawatt beam powers, used in a two-step production scheme for fission products. Within the EURISOL study, e.g. a 1 GeV, 5 mA proton has been investigated in some detail. It would be upgradeable in energy and also have, up to a certain extend, the capability for heavy-ion acceleration. The required R and D programme was assessed, and found to be in the mainstream of today's accelerator development which addresses also other projects like accelerator-driven transmutation of nuclear waste, neutrino beams, .... The concomitant development of high-power spallation targets and the secondary uranium targets is the second issue where a lot of R and D effort is done by several communities. Linked to this are also the studies in which photo-fission is used as a 'low-cost' option for a dedicated region of the nuclear chart. The present paper will introduce in this general context, and discuss (selected) relevant new experimental results which are obtained in linac in particular