Rare Ion Beams - The New Road to Understand the Universe

The last three decades have seen enormous progress in our ability to produce new nuclei. Driven by the first construction of powerful heavy-ion and light-ion accelerators and more recently, with the advent of rare isotope beams-also called radioactive ion beams (RIBs), the field of low energy nuclear physics is now vibrant with new possibilities. On one hand, the community now understands the nucleus and its central role in the creation of elements in the universe with more confidence, while on the other, new and surprising discoveries of nuclear halo, new magic numbers and regions of deformation, to name a few, entice us to probe for more. RIBs with their promise of making accessible hitherto unexplored regions of the nuclear chart and enhanced intensity for already synthesized nuclei has clearly emerged as the frontier of low energy nuclear physics. Apart from nuclear physics and astrophysics, RIBs open up new areas in materials research and biology, and provide an alternative route for medical isotope production. Further, the accelerator technology needed for producing these beams has led to the development of particle therapy machines for treatment of cancer and ion beam applications in industry. This article reviews the present scenario of physics and technology of RIBs and discusses VECC's efforts and contribution in this field and future plans vis-a-vis the upcoming ANURIB project.