Review of radioactive ion beam accelerators

During the last decade there has been a growing worldwide interest in the possibility of using radioactive ion beams for a variety of fundamental studies in pure and applied science. The possibility of producing intense beams of radioactive nuclei with extreme neutron to proton ratio (N/Z), compared with natural isotopes, has opened a new era in nuclear science. This interest has been generated by the considerable improvements which have occurred over the past 30 year in the field of heavy-ion accelerators, ion sources, more particularly, in on-line production and isotope mass separation. The three major techniques used to produce intense radioactive ion beams are the in-flight separation method (IFS), neutron fission product using reactor (NF) and on-line isotope separation (ISOL). Coupling very intense production sources of unstable nuclei to efficient accelerator structures will lead to the availability of a wide range of nuclei far from stability. This paper reviews the properties of radioactive ion beam accelerators in operation, under construction and proposed around the world