[en] The experimental program at GANIL is briefly discussed. The ion velocities provided by GANIL allow to study the evolution from the mean field description of the nuclear system produced in a nucleus-nucleus collision to the many individual nucleon description when the energy of the projectile increases from 10 to 100 MeV per nucleon. The main features of the nuclear physics program (reaction mechanism studies, production of exotic nuclei and so on) are considered. Some first physics results are presented

[en] Two scientific domains have been explored very actively at GANIL: the thermodynamic behaviour of nuclear systems with high internal energy, and the properties of light nuclei far from stability. These are fundamental aspects of nuclear physics that beams at energies close to the Fermi energy can most efficiently explore. The aim of GANIL in the coming years is to develop and further improve its research programs in these two areas. The fact that new machines are now providing physicists elsewhere with beams somewhat similar to those from GANIL will contribute to even more fruitful investigations. The current prospects at GANIL aim at better conditions to produce and study rare exotic nuclear species, and to characterize the behaviour of hot excited nuclear matter. In sections 2 and 3, the general objectives of these improvements will be described, while the specific projects, which concern either the accelerator itself or the experimental equipment, will be addressed in section 4 through 7. Broader and longer-term perspectives will be described in section 8

[en] The many new results obtained at GANIL on nuclei far from stability in the recent years point to the interest and possibility of achieving spectroscopic studies for such unusual nuclear species. Their role in the r-process, the large probabilities that they exhibit for radioactive modes which are poorely known or even absent for nuclei closer to stability make this field of nuclear physics a natural ground for cooperation with astrophysics. The new developments planned at GANIL for the next two years should allow a further extension of these studies, typically by two more isotopes on the neutron-rich side. It is also worth noting that the development of radioactive beams and the use of GANIL for studying time-reversed reactions for the measure of cross sections of astrophysical interest present valuable possibilities which are only in their initial stage

[en] This paper will be devoted to underlying the major developments which occurred in the study of light nuclei far from the valley of stability since the last International Nuclear Physics Conference in Harrogate (1986) where that field of research was already presented (1). A broader review will appear elsewhere (2). Therefore only some highlights are presented and discussed here. Probably the main development of the field in recent years has to do with a change in its aims and methods. The goal is no longer to search for individual hitherto unobserved nuclear species and to report their existence. It has become to study the major nuclear properties such as binding energy, half life, size, decay modes over broad ranges of neighbouring isotopes extending very far from stability in order to put to a test the current nuclear models based essentially on observations of nuclei near the stability line

[en] Why and how to study light exotic nuclei is first presented. Then the search for new radioactivities is reviewed, and the method developed at Ganil to have absolute measurement of the nuclear mass with a convenient uncertainty. Other quantitative information on exotic nuclei are finally recalled

[en] The aim of the first experiment at GANIL was to examine the variation of the N/Z ratio for projectile like fragments when the incident energy increases. Results presented bring confliding evidences. Some conclusions are drawn. The process pointed to by some of the results shown is examined in detail. The relative velocities of projectile and target at GANIL energies incompass the Fermi velocity. Already a few experiments which use the high energy and high intensity of the beam bring results dealing with the nuclear structure. Then results are reviewed

[en] Prospects for the study of exotic nuclei and hot nuclear systems at GANIL are described. Prospects in the study of hot nuclear systems are shown

[en] Recent developments in the study of nuclei far from stability are presented with an emphasis on those properties which bring informations on correlations in nuclei

[en] The so-called intermediate energies are energies for which different reaction mechanisms, intrinsically incompatible, are expected to compete. An energy of a few tens of MeV per nucleon is the limit between two different regimes of nuclear reactions. The characteristics of the changing collision mechanism are detailed in these lectures, particularly through information collected during the first five years of operation of Ganil. Then a synthesis of new nuclear species in intermediate energy heavy ion reactions is given

[en] A search of indirect evidence for the production of bound neutral nuclei in the 24 GeV proton induced fragmentation of W is described. The enrichment by two neutrons of ⁷⁰Zn and ¹³⁸Ba in a shielded sample, which was looked for as an indication of the occurrence of bound neutral nuclei, is observed. Among the many side reactions studied which could also account for the observed results, one is finally found to have a high enough yield. It is the (t,p) reaction induced by tritons from the p+W fragmentation process with an energy high enough to cross the shield which protects the sample