  We discuss the possibility of creating novel research tools by producing and
storing highly relativistic beams of highly ionised atoms in the CERN
accelerator complex, and by exciting their atomic degrees of freedom with
lasers to produce high-energy photon beams. Intensity of such photon beams
would be by several orders of magnitude higher than offered by the presently
operating light sources, in the particularly interesting gamma-ray energy
domain of 0.1-400 MeV. In this energy range, the high-intensity photon beams
can be used to produce secondary beams of polarised electrons, polarised
positrons, polarised muons, neutrinos, neutrons and radioactive ions. New
research opportunities in a wide domain of fundamental and applied physics can
be opened by the Gamma Factory scientific programme based on the above primary
and secondary beams.
