Grigory Vladimirovich Domogatsky, spokesman of the Baikal Neutrino Telescope project, passed away on 17 December 2024 at the age of 83.
Born in Moscow in 1941, Domogatsky obtained his PhD in 1970 from Moscow Lomonosov University and then worked at the Moscow Lebedev Institute. There, he studied the processes of the interaction of low-energy neutrinos with matter and neutrino emission during the gravitational collapse of stars. His work was essential for defining the scientific programme of the Baksan Neutrino Observatory. Already at that time, he had put forward the idea of a network of underground detectors to register neutrinos from supernovae, a programme realised decades later by the current SuperNova Early Warning System, SNEWS. Together with his co-author Dmitry Nadyozhin, he showed that neutrinos released in star collapses are drivers in the formation of isotopes such as Li-7, Be-8 and B-11 in the supernova shell, and that these processes play an important role in cosmic nucleosynthesis.
In 1980 Domogatsky obtained his doctor of science (equivalent to the Western habilitation) and in the same year became the head of the newly founded Laboratory of Neutrino Astrophysics at High Energies at the Institute for Nuclear Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences, INR RAS. The central goal of this laboratory was, and is, the construction of an underwater neutrino telescope in Lake Baikal, a task to which he devoted all his life from that point on. He created a team of enthusiastic young experimentalists, starting site explorations in the following year and obtaining first physics results with test configurations later in the 1980s. At the end of the 1980s, the plan for a neutrino telescope comprising about 200 photomultipliers (NT200) was born, and realised together with German collaborators in the 1990s. The economic crisis following the breakdown of the Soviet Union would surely have ended the project if not for Domogatsky’s unshakable will and strong leadership. With the partial configuration of the project deployed in 1994, first neutrino candidates were identified in 1996: the proof of concept for underwater neutrino telescopes had been delivered.
He shaped the image of the INR RAS and the field of neutrino astronomy
NT200 was shut down a decade ago, by which time a new cubic-kilometre telescope in Lake Baikal was already under construction. This project was christened Baikal–GVD, with GVD standing for gigaton volume telescope, though these letters could equally well denote Domogatsky’s initials. Thus far it has reached about half of the size of the IceCube neutrino telescope at the South Pole.
Domogatsky was born to a family of artists and was surrounded by an artistic atmosphere whilst growing up. His grandfather was a famous sculptor, his father a painter, woodcrafter and book illustrator. His brother followed in his father’s footsteps, while Grigory himself married Svetlana, an art historian. He possessed an outstanding literary, historical and artistic education, and all who met him were struck by his knowledge, his old-fashioned noblesse and his intellectual charm.
Domogatsky was a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the recipient of many prestigious awards, most notably the Bruno Pontecorvo Prize and the Pavel Cherenkov Prize. With his leadership in the Baikal project, Grigory Domogatsky shaped the scientific image of the INR RAS and the field of neutrino astronomy. He will be remembered as a carefully weighing scientist, as a person of incredible stamina, and as the unforgettable father figure of the Baikal project.
