Highlights of the ISOLDE facility and the HIE-ISOLDE project

The ISOLDE facility is an ISOL-based radioactive beam facility at CERN. It is dedicated to the production and research of nuclei far from stability. Exotic nuclei of variety of chemical elements are available for the study of nuclear structure, nuclear astrophysics, fundamental symmetries and atomic physics, as well as for applications in condensed-matter and life sciences. Since longer than a decade it has offered the largest variety of post-accelerated radioactive beams in the world. In order to broaden the scientific opportunities beyond the present ISOLDE facility, the on-going HIE-ISOLDE (High Intensity and Energy) project will provide major improvements in energy range, beam intensity and beam quality. The first phase will boost the beam energy of the current REX LINAC to 5.5 MeV/u resulting in larger cross sections for Coulomb excitation compared to the previous maximum energy of 3 MeV/u. Higher energies will also open up many transfer reaction channels. Physics with post-accelerated beams starts in autumn 2015. The second phase of the project is already approved and is expected to be completed in 2018 allowing beam energies up to 10 MeV/u for A/q = 4.5. In this contribution the present status of the ISOLDE facility including some highlights will be discussed. The HIE-ISOLDE project will be described together with a panorama of the physics cases to be addressed.