The Spiral 2 Project: Construction Progress and Recent Developments on the Sc Linac Driver

The construction of the new Spiral 2 facility has started in Caen (France) at the National Heavy Ions Accelerator Center (GANIL). The SPIRAL 2 project is based on a multi-beam Superconducting Linac Driver delivering 5 mA deuterons up to 40 MeV and 1 mA heavy ions up to 14.5 MeV/u. Different Radioactive Isotope Beams (RIB) production methods are foreseen: 1) by fission process (up to 10fissions/s, induced in an UCx target by fast neutrons from a C converter bombarded by deuterons), 2) by fusion-evaporation residues or transfer products, using p, D, 3,4He and heavy ions beams in different targets. The high intensity beams delivered by the Superconducting LINAC Driver, will also open new perspectives for superheavy and very-heavy nuclei synthesis and spectroscopy. In addition to fundamental research in nuclear physics, the SPIRAL 2 facility will be also a high performance multidisciplinary tool for many other areas of science and technology: nuclear energy, material sciences, atomic physics and biology.