Personal dimension

From school curiosity - to detectors for nuclear physics

The guest of our section is Alexander Nartov, a fifth-year student of the St. Petersburg State Electrotechnical University "LETI" named after V.I.Ulyanov (Lenin). Two years ago, he first came to practice at JINR, although in absentia was a much earlier. Today, Alexander is preparing to defense his PhD thesis, his supervisors in JINR speak about him as a talented, promising young specialist. We asked A.Nartov to tell about how his path to science developed and how this path stretched to Dubna.

How did your first meeting with science take place? Thanks to what did you choose the scientist's profession?

- There is a phrase that describes me very well at school age: "Being a passionate, but inconsistent, he knew many interesting, but useless things". Because of this, it is difficult for me to highlight a certain point at which I realized that I want to be a scientist. I remember well that science interested me: I participated in conferences and subject olympiads, studied the issue of popularizing science at the school level. But for a long time, it was only a funny hobby, the opportunity to do something other than studying and sometimes, traveling around the city, with benefit missing lessons. In this context, it is important to say that the teachers and the head teacher of the gymnasium which I studied in actively supported the undertakings of the students and my case was no exception. Sometimes, I didn't even ask for permission to be absent from the lessons and the teachers themselves told me about passing conferences, events and strongly recommended to participate in them. I even remember that once a delegation of the Tokyo University came to us that delivered lectures for the students of the 11th grade, but the head teacher specially looked for my classmate and me, ninth-graders, insisting us to go there instead of the lesson.

In the MPD building

I realized that I want to unite my life, if not with science, then with the near-scientific sphere, in the 10th grade. Although great discoveries were made in my imagination and a kaleidoscope from films about great scientists flashed, reality made adjustments. Wise people from my environment were not tired of noticing that not every graduate becomes a good researcher, it is not known whether such work is suitable for me at all. I listened to them and chose the area at the junction of science and engineering, in order to determine the further vector of development during the play. My choice was the Faculty of Electronics of the St. Petersburg State Electrotechnical University "LETI", where I entered in the summer of the "crowning" year of 2020.

Currently, you are at the final stage of study at the university. How do you evaluate the years spent in it?

- The main thing that the university gave me is an understanding that electronics can be very different. Here, engineering, production technology, chemistry, physics, information technologies are very closely adjacent. The university has developed a reliable base of knowledge that is a very good basis for the information required for research. For five years, I have gone from the "body abandoned at an angle to the horizon" to microcontrollers and heterostructures. From junior courses, we worked with generators, measuring equipment, operating devices, stands in which electronics could burn out due to students' mistakes. As a result, when I began to use the same equipment in the framework of my scientific paper, I already understood what I was dealing with, I realized the significance of accuracy and was ready to master something new.

I studied with many talented teachers that were able to give me not only knowledge in discipline, but also taught me to study, passed their experience and helped even where they were not obliged to do it. For example, the head of the seminars in mathematical disciplines, a theoretic physicist by education, in breaks told us about physics and quantum mechanics, about the use of more complex mathematics for an elegant solution to physical tasks. And when I wrote for first-year students an informal friendly addition to the methodological instructions for processing measurement results, based on the frequent mistakes of my generation, one of the teachers of the Department of Physics, after class, edited my essay to avoid repeated mistakes.

Education in natural-scientific and technological specialties is difficult, one should master complex disciplines, meet a lot of tasks. What, according to your experience, helps to overcome the routine, but does not take it away from the educational process?

- I do not think that the university years are given to us only in order to study for half the years, to get a diploma and silently to go into adult life. My desire to "bring vanity" was already manifested at school when I performed at concerts, organized discos and assemblies. At the university, it reached the climax. The first year, student balls, holidays, the weeks of science - I was able to attach a hand to many events of our university, some of which I even organized. One could say that I have a lot of hobbies: cinema, reading, designers, sport but according to the feelings, it is such a variety of activities that allows me to take a break from science and study. It is nice when one can help others, very motivates the gratitude of freshmen, the respect of colleagues and the trust of the university authorities. In addition, thanks to my engagement, I managed to find real friends which I am incredibly happy about. People are social creatures (with rare exceptions) and therefore, it is nice to have near those who you can discuss the urgent, laugh, feel sad with.

From the ridiculous: organizational activity has already become so familiar to me that in 2023, having barely arrived at the school of young scientists of JINR, I suddenly realized that I was already helping in the loading and unloading of boats having arrived at Lipnya, although before that, I knew no one of the organizers.

Please, tell us about how you learned about our city and Institute.

-For the first time, I learned about Dubna and JINR in 2016 at the anniversary of the gymnasium No. 295 of St. Petersburg, where I studied then. Many prominent graduates and among others, the first gold medalist Valery Nesvizhevsky (today, a specialist in the field of neutron physics and an employee of the Institut Laue-Langevin) were invited to the celebration. He spoke about his school years, ways to science. After that, he came many times with lectures that I listened with great interest. At the end of 2018, Valery Nesvizhevsky helped the gymnasium to organize an excursion to Dubna for the class in which I studied. So, I visited JINR for the first time. We had excursions to all laboratories, were showed basic facilities and talked about the experiments carried out on them. I was impressed, at that moment, it looked like something unattainable, from that world, which I hardly could become of.

After entering the university, in 2020, I cooperated with Valery Nesvizhevsky. The nuclear topic interested me and therefore, we considered the possibilities to unite it with my specialty for further research. Such a combination was found - detectors of nuclear physics. He recommended that I contact his colleagues in FLNP. So, I got to Dubna for the second time - in 2023. In FLNP, in the scientific group of Gadir Akhmedov, I was engaged in the investigation of the physical parameters of SiPM-silicon photomultipliers. The results of this research were the basis of my bachelor's diploma.

At present, you are engaged in straw detectors. Apparently, your master's thesis will be dedicated to this topic. How did the transition occur?

- While I was in JINR, I was lucky to visit the school of young scientists that the AYSS organized. At this school, I met scientists from different laboratories and became very interested in the NICA collider.

After defending my bachelor's degree last summer, I was introduced to Victor Kim from the St. Petersburg Institute of Nuclear Physics (NRC KI-PINP), whose group participates in the SPD NICA experiment, in particular, in the development of the SPD Straw Tracker under the supervision of Temur Enik at VBLHEP. Early last autumn, I visited VBLHEP, where Temur Enik told me about the experiment, showed me the NICA accelerator complex that was put into operation and introduced to me the activities of the group. Based on the results of the visit, I decided to continue working with this team. Since the end of 2024, under the supervision of T.L.Enik and E.V.Kuznetsov (NRC KI-PINP) I have studied the impact of real electronics parameters on the efficiency of particle identification in the SPD Straw Tracker, together with the groups of JINR, NRC KI-PINP (Gatchina) and INP (Almaty). Due to the fact that I continue my studies in St. Petersburg and have no possibility to be permanently present in JINR, I work remotely. At the moment, I am involved in the work, study the task and fill in the gaps in knowledge on the application of electronics in detector physics.

And probably, a logical question at the end of the interview - will you come to work at JINR after having graduated the university?

- I really want to continue to work with SPD Straw Tracker. I would like to see the end of the construction, commissioning, registration of the first events. So, JINR is one of the main variants for my professional path after the university. Life is full of surprises and uncertainties and I don't want to promise anything, yet, I hope that everything will happen in the best way for us and for the experiment and for JINR and for science as a whole.

Galina Myalkovskaya