RECFA meets in Moscow and Dubna
A meeting of a subpanel of the European Committee for Future Accelerators (ECFA) held on 9–10 October provided the opportunity for an update on the status and prospects for high-energy physics in Russia. Restricted ECFA (RECFA), a subpanel that acts as a communication channel between each participating country and the ECFA Plenary panel, held open sessions at both the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) in Moscow and at JINR in Dubna. A closed session was also held on the morning of the second day.
At the open meeting held in Moscow RECFA learnt about the current status of particle physics in Russia from Victor Matveev, director of the RAS Institute for Nuclear Research. Alexander Skrinsky, director of the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics in Novosibirsk (BINP), described the participation of Russian scientific centres in the design and construction of the LHC at CERN and the future super-LHC. Alexei Sissakian, director of JINR, reviewed the status and development of high-energy physics at JINR, focusing in particular on the institute’s new advanced project – the Nuclotron-based Ion Collider fAcility (NICA) to accelerate heavy ions for studies of nuclear matter at high temperature and density.
Further reports described the status and upgrades of the accelerator complex of the Institute of High Energy Physics at Protvino, the status and development of co-operation in the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research in Germany, research in particle physics at BINP, and the involvement of Russian scientific centres in the physics programmes at B-factories. Grigori Shirkov informed the participants about the efforts of JINR and Russia in the design of the International Linear Collider. Representatives of other Russian research centres spoke about research in particle physics for space studies in Russia; Russian projects in cosmic-ray studies; research in particle physics at the RAS Lebedev Physics Institute; the participation of Russian specialists in the development of detectors and in physics at the LHC; the project of a high-flux research reactor, PIK, at the RAS Konstantinov Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute; and the development of the computing Grid in Russia.
The evening session on 10 October took place in Dubna where the JINR directorate initiated a detailed discussion on NICA, the institute’s new project. NICA, with its multipurpose detector (MPD), is at the core of the strategy for research in high-energy physics at JINR in the second decade of the 21st century. Experiments at the new accelerator will be aimed at precision studies of the phase transitions of strongly interacting matter that occur at very high temperatures and densities. The research will facilitate deeper understanding of the processes that took place in the early universe at the moment just after the Big Bang. From the JINR side, the meeting involved JINR’s director, Sissakian; vice-director R Lednický; chief scientific secretary N Russakovich, chief engineer G Shirkov; director of the Laboratory of High Energy Physics (LHEP) at JINR, V Kekelidze; the NICA-MPD project leaders A Sorin, I Meshkov and G Trubnikov; and adviser to the JINR director, G Kozlov. In addition, G Trubnikov gave a review of the NICA-MPD project.
RECFA members took an active part in discussions about the new project and expressed their interest in several scientific-technical and organizational proposals, including wide international co-operation. Foreign participants of the joint RECFA–JINR meeting were also able to visit the NICA complex at LHEP, where the large-scale project is implemented at an existing accelerator, the Nuclotron.
JINR seeks candidates for Flerov prize
Applications are invited for the G N Flerov Prize for outstanding research in nuclear physics to be awarded by JINR in 2010, the year of the 70th anniversary of the discovery of spontaneous fission by Georgy Nikolaevich Flerov and Konstantin Petrzhak. The prize, established in 1992 in memory of the eminent physicist Flerov (1913–1990), rewards contributions to nuclear physics related to his interests. These covered experimental heavy-ion physics, including the synthesis of heavy and exotic nuclei using ion beams of stable and radioactive isotopes, studies of fusion, fission, nuclear-reaction mechanisms, accelerator technology and applied research.
The prize will be awarded in March 2010. The contest is for individual participants only. Applications, including a CV, an abstract of research and copies of major contributions, should be sent before 1 February 2010 to: Sergey I Sidorchuk, Scientific Secretary of the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions, Joliot Curie str. 6, 141980, Dubna, Moscow Region, Russia; or by e-mail to sid@nrmail.jinr.ru. For further details, visit the website at http://flerovlab.jinr.ru/flnr/.