The SPES exotic beam ISOL facility: Status of the project, technical challenges, instrumentation, scientific program

The SPES facility (Selective Production of Exotic Species), that is the INFN project for a Nuclear Physics facility with Radioactive Ion Beams (RIBs) is in advanced construction at the Legnaro National Laboratories. It will mostly provide neutron-rich exotic beams, through the production of fission fragments ( 10^{13} fiss/s) by an intense proton beam (200μA) on a direct UCx target. Several other targets will be developed, in order to provide users a large beam selection. Forefront research in nuclear structure and dynamics will be performed in the forthcoming years, studying a nuclear chart region far from stability. The expected beam intensities, their quality and their maximum available energies (up to 11MeV/n for A∼eq 130 will provide the users with a modern and highly perfomant facility. Coordinated efforts are being dedicated to the developments and upgrading of both the accelerator complex and of up-to-date experimental set-ups.