Transylvania hosts extreme light
The first International Conference on Light at Extreme Intensities (LEI '09 ) took place in Brasov, Romania, on 16–21 October 2009, just as the news broke of a multicountry (Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania) commitment to spend €735 million on building up a new European infrastructure in this field of research by 2015. The meeting was organized by Dan Dumitras of the National Institute for Laser, Plasma and Radiation Physics (INFLPR), Bucharest, on behalf of the National Authority for Scientific Research, Romania, and the international consortium, the Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI). It took place at the Transylvania University of Brasov and was chaired by Gérard Mourou from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Techniques Avancées and Ecole Polytechnique, who is also the co-ordinator of ELI.
LEI '09 addressed the new physics opportunities offered by high-intensity relativistic laser technology. Around 150 experts from Europe, the US, Russia, Japan and Korea traded petawatt intensities for ultrarelativistic particle beams; single-cycle femtosecond light-pulses for problems of radiation reactions in electromagnetic theory; and multi-kilojoule pulse energies for cracks in the QED vacuum structure. From attosecond photography to Mach's principle, the breadth of the scientific opportunities continues to amaze (CERN Courier March 2009 p21).
Dubna's member states agree on new plan in Astana
A regular session of the Committee of Plenipotentiaries of the governments of JINR member states took place in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, on 19–21 November 2009. This was the first time in the 54-year history of JINR that a regular session of this committee has met in one of the member states. Astana is the location of the interdisciplinary scientific research complex of the L Gumilev Eurasian National University, which was established with the participation of JINR.
At the meeting, JINR's director Alexei Sissakian presented a report on the results of the previous seven-year plan and the main features of a new seven-year programme for JINR's development. He highlighted as major achievements the start-up of the Intense Resonance Neutron Source, the synthesis of new long-lived superheavy elements, the development of the DRIBs cyclotron complex for heavy ions, the upgrading of the research reactor IBR-2M and the superconducting heavy-ion accelerator Nucoltron-M, which is to become the basis for the new superconducting collider NICA (NICA targets the mixed phase in hadron matter ). The institute also attained significant results in its network and computing infrastructure.
Speaking about the specific features of the new seven-year plan, Sissakian pointed out that the main purpose of the strategic development of JINR is to take leading positions in three basic research directions. In high-energy heavy-ion physics, the highest priority belongs to the NICA/MPD project – one of JINR's large-scale projects – and to the involvement in external experiments and partnership programmes. These consist of 15 projects in collaboration with CERN, including three ambitious projects at the LHC, and collaborations with national laboratories in the US and Germany. These partnership programmes also imply the involvement of these other centres in JINR's "home" projects in Dubna.
In low-energy heavy-ion physics, the important development stage deals with the project of the accelerator complex for radioactive beams, DRIBs-III. JINR expects to obtain a number of fundamental results in this area. Finally, IBR-2M, the pulsed reactor for fast neutrons with mean capacity of 2 MW, is the basic facility for research at JINR in neutron nuclear physics and condensed-matter physics using nuclear physics methods.
JINR's theorists are active in all three directions and there are educational programmes to promote science to young people. The institute also pays great attention to projects to upgrade the JINR network and computing infrastructure.
The session concluded with a discussion of the new seven-year plan for JINR's development and the financial plan for 2010. The committee approved the plan and agreed the budget for 2010.