GLORIA: A compact detector system for studying heavy ion reactions using radioactive beams

In this paper we describe a compact and large solid-angle silicon array, the GLObal ReactIon Array (GLORIA), designed to study direct nuclear reactions induced by exotic nuclei at energies close to the Coulomb barrier. The detector array consists of six particle-telescopes arranged in a very close geometry around a 30° rotated-target system, allowing for the measurement of reaction fragments in a continuous angular range from 15° to 165° (Lab). GLORIA has been used for first time at the SPIRAL/GANIL facility at Caen (France) to study the scattering of the system 8He+208Pb at the collision energies of 16 and 22 MeV.