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The advent of new facilities for the production of Radioactive Ion Beams (RIB) like EXCYT at the Laboratori Nazionali del Sud (LNS) in Catania , will open a new research field. This field involves the study of nuclear structure and reaction dynamics induced by nuclei with particular properties such as large values of isospin, haloes, large deformation, and the measurement of nuclear observables of astrophysical interest.

The MAGNEX large-acceptance spectrometer (fig. 1) was designed in order to explore this physics, taking into account the RIB's relatively low intensities, wide energy (E=0.5 - 8 MeV/u) and mass ranges and the excellent optical properties of Tandem beams. Of course, stable beams - including a limited range of those from the LNS superconducting cyclotron - can also be used. The spectrometer relies partly on hardware (especially the shape of the entrance and exit dipole pole tips) and partly on software (ray reconstruction) to overcome the strong aberrations inherent in the 50 msr acceptance.

Results of physical interest relying on the study of the (⁷Li,⁷Be) reaction at 52 MeV on ¹⁹F and ²⁷Al targets and multi-neutron transfer induced by ¹⁸O beam on ¹³C have been obtained (see Activity Report pag 85). In particular the capability of the instrument for nuclear spectroscopy challenges is shown on the basis of the measured energy spectra. The obtained 10^-3 energy resolution confirms the ambitious characteristic of the calculations and allows considering the instrument as an ideal tool for future studies in the field of nuclear spectroscopy and reaction mechanisms at incident energies not far from the Coulomb barrier.