Eur. Phys. J. A 13, 255–261 (2002) T HE EUROPEAN P HYSICAL JOURNAL A c  Societ` a Italiana di Fisica Springer-Verlag 2002 Prospects for exotic beam facilities in North America J.A. Nolen a Physics Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL 60439, USA Received: 1 May 2001 Abstract. There are several nuclear physics laboratories in North America that have on-going research using energetic and stopped radioactive beams. These include the large ISOL-type programs ISAC at TRIUMF and HRIBF at Oak Ridge and the in-flight fragmentation program at the NSCL of Michigan State University. There are also smaller, more specialized, programs using a variety of techniques at the 88-inch cyclotron of Berkeley, ATLAS at Argonne, the Cyclotron Institute of Texas A&M University, the Nuclear Structure Laboratory at Notre Dame University, and the Nuclear Structure Laboratory at SUNY/Stony Brook. There are also three projects on the horizon in North America for new capabilities in both the near term and more distant future. The intensities of the in-flight fragment beams at the NSCL will be increased dramatically very soon as the Coupled Cyclotron Project will be completed and commissioned for research by mid-2001. A new project, ISAC-II, has been approved in Canada. For the longer term, the United States is considering construction of a major new facility, the Rare Isotope Accelerator (RIA), which would have a very high-intensity heavy-ion driver linac. The RIA facility is proposed to utilize both ISOL and in-flight production mechanisms. PACS. 29.17.+w Electrostatic, collective, and linear accelerators – 29.25.Rm Sources of radioactive nuclei – 29.20.-c Cyclic accelerators and storage rings 1 Introduction This paper describes the existing and planned exotic beam facilities in North America, with emphasis on their capa- bilities rather than their specific science programs. Re- ports on physics results and future scientific programs of these facilities have been given at this and other recent conferences. 2 Existing facilities There are eight nuclear physics laboratories in North America, which currently do research with radioisotopes and/or radioactive beams. They are listed briefly in ta- ble 1 below along with an indication of the production mechanisms used at each. They are separately discussed in sub-sections below, sorted according to the production mechanisms used. Three of the facilities have active re- search programs with atom or ion traps for radioisotopes; these are also indicated in table 1 and described briefly below. 2.1 Current ISOL facilities There are two active ISOL facilities in North America, one at TRIUMF in Vancouver, BC, and one at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. a e-mail: Nolen@ANL.GOV Table 1. Summary of existing facilities. Location and name Type TRIUMF/ISAC ISOL & Traps ORNL/HRIBF ISOL (accelerated) LBNL/88 ′′ /BEARS Batch & Traps ANL/ATLAS Batch, In-flight & Traps UND/TWINSOL (UND/UofM) In-flight TAMU/K500-MARS In-flight SUNY, Stony Brook/SC Linac Traps MSU/NSCL/K1200 Fragmentation 2.1.1 TRIUMF/ISAC The new ISAC complex [1] at TRIUMF is a high-intensity ISOL facility. ISAC occupies one of several beam lines from the TRIUMF 500 MeV, H − cyclotron and will use up to 100 microamperes of continuous-wave primary pro- ton beam current. To date tests have been carried out at production currents of up to 20 microamperes. Since 1998 radionuclides have been mass separated at ion source en- ergies of 60 keV and delivered to experimental apparatus for research. Beta-decay studies related to nuclear astro- physics and fundamental symmetry studies in an atom trap, TRINAT [2], comprise one area of research currently being pursued. An accelerator is also currently being com- missioned for radioactive beams at ISAC; it is described