The
GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research GmbH (former Name Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung) in the
Arheilgen suburb of
Darmstadt,
Germany is a federally and state co-funded
heavy ion research center. The current director of GSI is
Horst Stöcker who succeeded Walter F. Henning in August 2007.
The laboratory performs basic and applied research in physics and related natural science disciplines. Main fields of study include plasma physics, atomic physics, nuclear structure and reactions research, biophysics and medical research. The lab is a member of the Hermann von Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft Deutscher Forschungszentren (HGF), an association of national research centers.
The chief tool is the heavy ion accelerator facility consisting of UNILAC, the Universal Linear Accelerator (energy of 2 - 11.4 MeV per nucleon), SIS 18, the heavy-ion synchrotron (1 - 2 GeV/u) and ESR, the experimental storage ring (0.5 - 1 GeV/u) and FRS. The UNILAC was commissioned in 1975, the SIS 18 and the ESR were added in 1990 boosting the ion acceleration from 10% of light speed to 90%.[citation needed]
Elements discovered at GSI Meitnerium (1982), Hassium (1984), Darmstadtium (1994), Roentgenium (1994), Bohrium (1996), Ununbium (1996).[1]
