The European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) has selected in 2006 a proposal based on ultra-intense laser fields with intensities reaching up to 10-10 W cm called 'ELI' for Extreme Light Infrastructure. The construction of a large-scale laser-centred, distributed pan-European research infrastructure, involving beyond the state-of-the-art ultra-short and ultra-intense laser technologies, received the approval for funding in 2011-2012. The three pillars of the ELI facility are being built in Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania. The Romanian pillar is ELI-Nuclear Physics (ELI-NP). The new facility is intended to serve a broad national, European and International science community. Its mission covers scientific research at the frontier of knowledge involving two domains. The first one is laser-driven experiments related to nuclear physics, strong-field quantum electrodynamics and associated vacuum effects. The second is based on a Compton backscattering high-brilliance and intense low-energy gamma beam (<20 MeV), a marriage of laser and accelerator technology which will allow us to investigate nuclear structure and reactions as well as nuclear astrophysics with unprecedented resolution and accuracy. In addition to fundamental themes, a large number of applications with significant societal impact are being developed. The ELI-NP research centre will be located in Măgurele near Bucharest, Romania. The project is implemented by 'Horia Hulubei' National Institute for Physics and Nuclear Engineering (IFIN-HH). The project started in January 2013 and the new facility will be fully operational by the end of 2019. After a short introduction to multi-PW lasers and multi-MeV brilliant gamma beam scientific and technical description of the future ELI-NP facility as well as the present status of its implementation of ELI-NP, will be presented. The science and examples of societal applications at reach with these electromagnetic probes with much improved performances provided at this new facility will be discussed with a special focus on day-one experiments and associated novel instrumentation.

Photon strength functions describing the average response of the nucleus to an electromagnetic probe are key input information in the theoretical modelling of nuclear reactions. Consequently they are important for a wide range of fields such as nuclear structure, nuclear astrophysics, medical isotope production, fission and fusion reactor technologies. They are also sources of information for widely used reaction libraries such as the IAEA Reference Input Parameter Library and evaluated data files such as EGAF.arXiv:1910.06966v1 [nucl-ex] 15 Oct 2019 Fig. 1 (Color online) Schematic representation on how NLDs and PSFs are extracted from the primary γ-ray spectrum. The firstgeneration γ-ray distribution (yellow triangle) is given by the product of the level density ρ(E i − E γ ) and the γ-ray transmission coefficient T γ (E γ ). All values of the elements of the ρ(E i − E γ ) and T γ (E γ ) vectors are allowed to vary in order to give the best fit to the P(E γ , E i ) landscape.

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The photo-neutron cross sections of 162,163 Dy have been measured for the first time in an energy region from the neutron threshold (S n ) up to ≈ 13 MeV. The (γ,n) reaction was induced with quasi-monochromatic laser Compton-scattered γ rays, produced at the NewSUBARU laboratory. The corresponding γ-ray strength functions (γSF) have been calculated from the photo-neutron cross sections. The data are compared to reanalyzed γSFs of 160−164 Dy, which are measured below S n . The excellent agreement with the photo-neutron data at S n confirms the principle of detailed balance. Thus, a complete γSF is established covering in total the energy region of 1 MeV ≤ E γ ≤ 13 MeV. These mid-shell well-deformed dysprosium isotopes all show scissors resonances with very similar structures. We find that our data predict the same integrated scissors strength as (γ, γ ) data when integrated over the same energy range, which shows that the scissors mode very likely is consistent with the generalized Brink hypothesis. Finally, using the γSFs as input in the reaction code TALYS, we have deduced radiative neutron-capture cross sections and compared them to direct measurements. We find a very good agreement within the uncertainties, which gives further support to the experimentally determined γSFs.