Overview
- The HIAF complex in Huizhou has finished construction, passed a technological acceptance review, and begun trial operations as a large national accelerator facility.
- The facility merges a superconducting linear accelerator with a fast‑cycling synchrotron in a single site to produce the most intense pulsed heavy‑ion beams available.
- Early commissioning set intensity records with oxygen beams of about 2.5 × 10^11 particles per pulse and bismuth beams of about 3.2 × 10^10 particles per pulse, with oxygen reaching 4.25 GeV.
- Scientists achieved twice the prior mass precision for the short‑lived nuclide Au‑202 and observed two previously unknown isotopes while using HIAF’s six experimental terminals.
- HIAF will open as an international user facility able to accelerate ions from hydrogen to uranium, offering faster data for nuclear physics and new supplies of rare isotopes for medicine, materials testing, and other applied fields.