At the JINR Science and Technology Council

About the results of the year and new plans

On 23 December, the last meeting of the JINR Science and Technology Council this year was held at the International Conference Centre in a mixed format. It was opened by Chairman of the Council Professor R.V.Jolos. The main issue on the agenda of the meeting was general information about the activities of JINR in 2022.

The speaker, JINR Director RAS Academician Grigory Trubnikov started his speech with the results of the sessions of the Finance Committee and the Committee of Plenipotentiary Representatives of the Member States that were held on 23-24 November in Egypt, - a draft of the new Seven-Year Plan for 2024-2030 was adopted, the Regulations on grants and programmes of Plenipotentiaries, as well as JINR Postdocs, JINR Fellowship programmes aimed at attracting young scientists from all over the world to JINR, enhancing the status of JINR as an international organization were approved. The activities of JINR in 2022 and the scientific results obtained were highly appreciated. The information about the withdrawal of Poland, Ukraine and the Czech Republic from JINR was taken into account. The membership of Slovakia was suspended.

"We respect the opinions and positions of the Governments of Poland, of the Czech Republic and of Ukraine - the Member States of the Institute," the speaker noted. "We are very sorry about this decision, for Poland, the Czech Republic and Ukraine have made a huge contribution to the development of our Institute, to the achievements of JINR over many decades: intellectual, material and personnel. And these countries, their scientific organizations, the names of outstanding scientists, specialists, engineers are forever inscribed in the history of our Institute. It is impossible to forget or to erase from memory. We are grateful to all our colleagues from Poland, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, to the organizers of science from these countries for their contribution and I am sure that we will be in further human and scientific relationships. We will do fundamental science together in international centres and projects in future. We hope that circumstances will soon develop that will result in the resumption of full-fledged cooperation with the Republic of Poland, the Czech Republic and Ukraine. The staff of the Institute will be glad for the resumption of this full-fledged cooperation. I am sure that all our countries, including politicians, will benefit from it."

Further, Director described new approaches to the development and updating of the structure of Topical plans, the new structure of scheduling and expenditures of the JINR budget. This work will start in 2023 and end in 2024.

The scientific part of the report that included the latest results obtained in the main areas of research activities of the Institute, included relativistic Nuclear Physics and Particle Physics: the extraction of a beam of xenon nuclei to the BM@N facility with a record luminosity, the measurement of the photoproduction cross section of vector mesons in Pb-Pb and Xe- Xe collisions at LHC energies in the ALICE facility, the search for "dark matter" in the CMS experiment and the "dark photon" in the NA64 experiment. These and other results achieved both in home and site projects were highly appreciated by the speaker. The work on the modernization of the Govorun supercomputer was highly appreciated in the report: the computing field has grown to 32 hyperconverged computing nodes, the hierarchical storage - to 8 distributed storage nodes. In behalf of all this work carried out by the MLIT staff, along with methods, algorithms and software for modeling physical systems, mathematical processing and analysis of experimental data, JINR is leader in this area both in Russia and in other Member States.

For 11 months in 2022, the Factory of Superheavy Elements has provided 5400 working hours for experiments on the synthesis and investigations of the properties of SHE. The first experiments on the chemistry of superheavy elements have started. The new GRAND separator has been put into operation; a chemical plant has been prepared, including a cryodetector; a range of test experiments have been carried out to determine the efficiency and optimal parameters of the facility. An experiment on the chemistry of elements 114 and 112 has started.

In the course of experiments on animals by the LRB staff, together with colleagues from A. Tsyb Medical Radiological Research Centre (Obninsk), a fundamentally new method for selective destruction of tumor stem cells has been substantiated and patented. After standard radiation therapy, the radio resistant population of stem cells usually survives and subsequently generates new tumor cells. In the course of the research, it has been found out that when applying the method of enhancing the radiosensitivity of tumor cells using inhibitors of DNA synthesis that has previously been discovered at LRB JINR, the death of most of the population of tumor stem cells is observed already after one irradiation fraction. When irradiated with protons, this mechanism is more efficient than when irradiated with photon beams.

For the first time, the mechanisms of the process of crystallization of membrane proteins in meso have been studied thoroughly at the Frank Laboratory of Neutron Physics that allows to develop an empirical basis for the use of this type of crystallization in the rational design of drugs. For the first time, the efficiency of a very cold neutron (VCN) reflector based on nanodiamond powder for increasing the fluxes extracted from the source has been experimentally shown.

Multiaccess International Centres widely develop in the Frank Laboratory of Neutron Physics and in the Laboratory of Radiation Biology. It is crucial to increase the volume and efficiency of using this unique infrastructure for the development of scientific research in the interests of all JINR Member States in cooperation with partner organizations in different countries of the world in the nearest future. The entire scientific infrastructure of JINR should become an open platform for scientists, engineers and specialists from all over the world.

For the first time since IceCube, the occurrence of an isotropic neutrino flux of an astrophysical nature has been confirmed according to Baikal-GVD data. Data for 2018-2021 have been used. The dataset used is 4928 days of "live" time per cluster (configuration from 3 to 8 clusters).

Further, the report contained information about the results of the work of the JINR Univresity Centre, including the basic departments of Moscow State University, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, MEPhI, Kazan Federal University, St. Petersburg State University, Dubna State University and a number of others, about student programmes in 2022, about work with schoolchildren - lessons about environmental investigations of the Educational Centre "Sirius", online lectures and excursions for the JINR Information Centres. There will be practical physics, a school nuclear physics laboratory, robotics, classrooms, a group of social communications, as well as a scientific and engineering group in the new additional building for the UC at 4a Vavilova Street that is currently under renovation. The branch of Moscow State University in Dubna that maintained the tradition of the current subdivision of SINP and the two departments of the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University, featured prominently in the report.

The "infrastructural" part of the report included the work of the Chief Engineer's services: updating the structure of CPED, work on new facilities, maintenance and support for the activities of JINR departments, the social sphere of the Institute. The report also included information on the activities of the Development of Digital Services Department, on the current situation with the budget and work of the Accounts Department, on work with personnel, the Legal Department and the International Cooperation Department in 2022. The activities of Information Centres, the JINR Press Center, the Department of Science Organization Activities and JINR Dissertation Councils were highly appreciated.

Speaking about the active participation of the Institute in the Decade of Science and Technology, the speaker noted that JINR had held and would hold several major scientific events: the JINR-CERN Joint Student School in 2023, the NICA Collaboration Meeting (2023), "Heavy Ion Physics: low energies and high energies" - a joint forum organized by Armenia and Georgia (spring 2023). JINR would participate in a special UN session dedicated to the International Year of Basic Sciences "We are proud to be one of the international key partners of the Decade and we are grateful to IUPAP and UNESCO," the speaker noted.

"The year 2022 will definitely go down in the history of JINR," Grigory Trubnikov emphasized in conclusion. "The key is the success and results of the scientific programme, new opportunities, development rate and sustainability of JINR. Academic relationship with Egypt, Serbia, Mexico, China widely develop... Plans for 2023 include the start of putting the NICA complex into operation, the start of construction of a new FLNR building, the active phase of constructing a new MSC-230 accelerator; adoption of the new Seven-Year Plan, the next generation of Directors at FLNP, MLIT, DLNP, VBLHEP, inclusion of the new membership of the Scientific Council in the active agenda."

R.V.Jolos, V.P.Ladygin, I.N.Meshkov, V.D.Kekelidze and B.Yu.Sharkov took part in the discussion of the report.

The JINR STC unanimously supported the candidacy of A.E.Shikanov (NRNU MEPhI) for the honorary title of Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation.

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At the end of the meeting of the Science and Technology Council, awards were presented to JINR staff members.

For many years of fruitful work, high professionalism, great contribution to the development of science and the enhancement of scientific and technological cooperation, a chief researcher of BLTP Rostislav Dzholos was awarded the honorary title of Honored Scientist of the Moscow Region.

Director of DLNP Vadim Bednyakov, Acting Director of VBLHEP Andrey Butenko, Director of BLTP Dmitry Kazakov were noted with gratitude from the Governor of the Moscow Region.

Head of the International Cooperation Department Dmitry Kamanin, JINR Chief Scientific Secretary Sergey Nedelko were awarded with a letter of thanks from the Governor of the Moscow Region.

Head of the Development of Digital Services Department Mikhail Vasiliev, JINR Director Assistant for Development Projects Alexander Ruzaev were awarded with a Certificate of Honor from the Ministry of Investments, Industry and Science of the Moscow Region.

For many years of conscientious work, significant achievements in professional activities and great personal contribution to the development of the nuclear industry, FLNR Deputy Scientific Director Mikhail Itkis was awarded the Merit Badge "For International Cooperation in the Nuclear Field".

JINR Honorary Diplomas were awarded to:

- a senior engineer of VBLHEP Aleksey Peltikhin for a significant contribution to the development of vacuum and magnetic cryostat systems of the NICA complex;

- a leading engineer of VBLHEP Alexey Svidetelev for a significant contribution to the development of modern high-vacuum technologies at the NICA project;

- a VBLHEP researcher Mikhail Shandov for a significant contribution to the work on putting the NICA injection complex into operation;

- Head of the Publishing Department Anastasia Shabashova, an electronic engineer of the 1st category of FLNP Mikhail Korobchenko, a senior researcher of FLNP Dmitry Nikolaev for services to the Institute, many years of conscientious work.

Evgeny MOLCHANOV