About what the newspaper wrote on this day

27 years ago

No. 12 (3401), 27 March, 1998

LNR named after G.N.Flerov: the expansion of the range of accelerated beams at the new U-400M cyclotron is largely due to the development of a new generation of ion sources and an axial injection system into the cyclotron. Significant progress in obtaining beams of light element ions from the DECRIS-14 ion source allows physicists of the laboratory and JINR Member States to carry out unique experiments using beams of secondary particles. New opportunities for physical experiments appeared with the production of lithium ion beams with record intensity.

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Another session of research at the Nuclotron of LHE is currently held. As reported by Deputy Director and Chief Engineer of LHE A.D.Kovalenko, the first part of the programme related to investigation of the deuteron beam has been completed to date. The scheduled physical statistics on the internal target at interaction of the deuteron beam with an energy of 3.13 GeV/nucleon with carbon, aluminum and copper targets has been accumulated. A number of experiments were implemented to investigate the operating modes of the Nuclotron and to study the beam dynamics. The intensity of accelerated beams was more than doubled. The second part of the programme is related to the investigation of the alpha-particle beam.

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The first Winter International Workshop "Cooperative phenomena in condensed matter", organized by JINR, the Bulgarian and Russian Academies of Sciences, was held in the Bulgarian town of Pamporovo. The JINR delegation took part in it. Review lectures were given by leading European physicists: V.Aksenov, N.Plakida, N.Bogolyubov, D.Uzunov (Sofia), A.Schakel (Berlin), X.Lauter (Grenoble), K.Ilinsky (Birmingham) and many others. The small number of participants and the excellent organization of the meeting provided perfect conditions for fruitful discussions. Recent results on phase transitions in fullerides, excitations in superfluid films, physics of low-dimensional compounds and correlation effects in superconductors were discussed.

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Director of the Research, Development and Production Centre "Aspect" Yury Nedachin told about their Centre:

"Our Centre was established in July, 1991. If Yu.N.Denisov and A.N.Sisakyan had not believed in the idea of "Aspect" from the very beginning, it is quite possible that the Centre would not have been founded... And today, the Institute's Directorate is very attentive to our affairs and concerns... The field of our activities expanded after we had won the tender of the State Customs Committee of Russia (SCC) in March, 1995 to develop safety equipment against authorized and unauthorized smuggling of fissile and radioactive materials at the borders, customs houses and airports of Russia. Apparently, our cooperation with JINR, the name of the Institute itself and the samples of our products, which there were practically no competitors for at that time, played their role. All this allowed the State Customs Committee to believe in us and to conclude a rather large contract for the development of such systems. The result was the stationary customs system for detection of fissile and radioactive materials "Yantar". It is equipped with gamma and neutron channels and data from detectors installed on several aisles are accumulated at a single console. We have been engaged in this area of development for two and a half years and as a result, the borders of our sales market have coincided with the borders of Russia from the Far East to the western frontiers. Our systems are installed in all international departments of airports, seaports, railway, automobile and pedestrian checkpoints, in all temporary customs storage warehouses... Currently, we develop a new system that allows not only detecting but also identifying radioactive material. Together with the Institute of Nuclear Physics of Uzbekistan we develop a device to determine the occurrence of gold and precious metals by non-destructive testing technique that can be used in various fields of human activity. We keep our contacts with the IAEA: in March, we are bringing our finished products to Austria for testing by specialists of this organization.

Leading columnist Irina LEONOVICH,
photo by Yury TUMANOV