[en] Following a period of intense exploitation by many users after the completion of the improvement programme in 1974 the CERN SC machine is now principally reserved for the Isolde programme. The heavy ion programme has been completed with acceleration of particles with charge/mass ratio from 1/3 to 1/4

[en] After the successful acceleration of deuterons, alpha particles and in more recent years of oxygen and sulphur ions, interest arose for even heavier particles. This paper describes the problems associated with heavy ions. A proposal is made for a scenario which allows the CERN accelerators to cope with ions heavier than sulphur, e.g. lead. Discussed are the different options for the injector and the necessary upgrading for the circular machines. (orig.)

[en] The design of the CERN Heavy-Ion Facility is described. This facility will be based on a new ion linear accelerator (Linac 3), together with improvements to the other accelerators of the CERN complex to allow them to cope with heavy ions, i.e. to the Proton Synchrotron Booster (PSB), the Proton Synchrotron (PS) and the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS). For this reference design, the pure isotope of lead, ²⁰⁸Pb, is considered. The bulk of the report describes Linac 3, a purpose-built heavy-ion linac mainly designed and constructed in collaboration with several CERN member state laboratories, but also with contributions from non-member states. Modifications and improvements to existing CERN accelerators essentially concern the RF acceleration, beam control and beam monitoring (all machines), beam kickers and septa at the input and output of the PSB, and major vacuum improvements, aiming to reduce the pressure by factors of at least seven and three in the PSB and PS respectively. After injection from the Electron Cyclotron Resonance source at 2.5 keV/u the partially stripped heavy-ion beam is accelerated successively by a Radio Frequency Quadrupole and an Interdigital-H linac to 4.2 MeV/u. After stripping to ²⁰⁸Pb⁵³⁺, the beam is again accelerated, firstly in the PSB (to 98.5 MeV/u), then in the PS (to 4.25 GeV/u). The final stage of acceleration in the SPS takes the fully stripped ²⁰⁸Pb⁸²⁺ ions to 177 GeV/u, delivering a beam of 4.10⁸ ions per SPS supercycle (15.2 s) to the experiments. The first physics run with lead ions is scheduled for the end of 1994. Finally, some requirements for carrying out heavy-ion physics at the Large Hadron Collider are mentioned. (orig.)