To the 110th anniversary of the birth of V.P.Dzhelepov

“I am Fortunate that I had a Chance to Contribute My Lepta to This Project So Significant for My Country”

Venedikt Petrovich Dzhelepov wrote: "I will share with you a curious story told me by Boris Lvovich Vannikov, the head of our First Department. He says, "You as a deputy director have difficulties, but you cannot compare your difficulties to those Kurchatov and I had had, yours are mere trifles. Well, imagine, the bomb was manufactured and set off. And they began awarding, giving honourable distinctions.

And the number of awards was limited - there were few of the highest awards, and then the lower, the more. And these rewards had to be distributed. How would you do it? It is so easy to make a wrong step. And you cannot ask for five or ten more awards. So, we pondered and took a decision - let us grant the "Hero of Socialist Labour" only to those who would be shot if we had not succeeded in our work. And at once, it turned out that there were a few people who could be awarded, just five. The next question: who would be sentenced to twenty-five years? There were more people but anyway, the number was limited.""

After several decades passed by, this story seemed to be curious. But when the Soviet Nuclear Project was initiated, the responsibility for the implementation of the colossal tasks stated for scientists was really heavy, even costing them their lives. The schedule was tight.

V.A.Matveev, JINR Director in 2012-2020, wrote: "For the first time, the topic "About the construction of a powerful cyclotron" was discussed at the session of the Special Committee on May 7, 1946. The first Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR "About the construction of a powerful cyclotron (M Facility)" was signed on August 13, 1946. The construction started in the middle of 1947, and the accelerator was commissioned late at night from December 13 to 14, 1949. Considering enormous complexity of the project and tremendous scope of construction-and-assembling operations, the schedule for construction of a large-scale physics facility, novel in the Soviet Union, was unprecedented."

In mid-August 1948, V.P.Dzhelepov got an important assignment from I.V.Kurchatov. He was appointed a deputy director of the Hydrotechnical Laboratory of the AS of the USSR established in Dubna. Venedikt Petrovich was involved in the construction of the world's largest proton accelerator, the five-metre synchrocyclotron with an energy of 500 MeV. All the accelerator elements, such as a five-metre magnet, frequency variator, vacuum pumps, etc., were made in the USSR for the first time. It was the time when V.P.Dzhelepov proved to be a great scientist and science administrator.

The objectives in designing and constructing the first national cyclotron were fulfilled on time, and the cyclotron was launched just before Stalin's birthday. It was possible because of the high expertise of nuclear physicists, engineers and specialists implementing the Nuclear Project of the USSR. Venedikt Petrovich Dzhelepov was among them. V.P.Dzhelepov was awarded the title of the Laureate of the Stalin Prize in 1951 and the Order of Lenin.

V.P.Dzhelepov, the first director of the JINR Laboratory of Nuclear Problems, was not only a talented administrator but also a great scientist. He was fond of physics and knew which areas were worth focusing on. "Venedikt Petrovich had an exceptional intuition about what areas in science would become the main ones at this or that moment," wrote academician S.S.Gernstein. Thanks to that intuition, the key directions of DLNP scientific activity were established, some of which are successfully evolving nowadays.

For your reference:

"A large personal contribution to elementary particle physics, accelerator physics and technology made Venedikt Petrovich famous worldwide. His pioneering studies of elastic and inelastic nucleon?nucleon and pion?nucleon interactions at an energy of hundreds of MeV are widely known, as also is determination of important properties of symmetry of strong interactions at these energies. The experimental investigations of nucleon-nucleon interactions conducted as far back as 1950s became the classics. They were widely quoted in research literature, monographs and textbooks remaining among the best in the precision of results. In a series of studies of pion production processes during collisions of neutrons with protons and nuclei conducted by V.P.Dzhelepov in the 1950s?early 1960s, the validity of the fundamental property of symmetry of nuclear forces, their isotopic invariance, was proved.

Studies of mu-atomic and mu-molecular processes in hydrogen, a discovery of a unique phenomenon of resonance dependence of the muonic molecules dtµ and ddµ and the first experimental observation of a high-probability muonic catalysis of the deuteron and triton fusion reaction are the core part of the scientific legacy of V.P.Dzhelepov.

This experimental and theoretical work of scientists from Dubna drew a large response in the scientific community resulting in the intense muonic catalysis research in the USA, Great Britain, Japan, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, in convening international conferences and in publishing a specialized journal, "Muonic Catalysis". Muonic catalysis turned out to be a novel promising direction in nuclear physics. In 1986, V.P.Dzhelepov was awarded the Kurchatov Gold Medal and the Prize of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR for a series of studies on mu-catalysis and mu-molecular processes in hydrogen isotopes. His research results are of great value for verifying predictions of the theory and its further development and serve as a basis for potential use of muonic catalysis in developing new energy sources.

Dzhelepov's contribution to the development of the accelerator basis for physics research was also immense. In 1959, the world's first isochronous cyclotron with a spiral variation of the magnetic field was commissioned at the Laboratory of Nuclear Problems. The beam dynamics studies performed at it became the basis for high-current phasotron development. A new JINR basic facility, a high-current proton phasotron with an energy of 680 MeV with a spiral structure of the magnetic field, was constructed at the Laboratory of Nuclear Problems due to the initiative of V.P.Dzhelepov and under his guidance. The implementation of the project allowed a twentyfold increase in the intensity of the proton beam and meson beams from the external target. The accelerator has been successfully used in experiments already for 27 years.

V.P.Dzhelepov was one of the first who considered the possibility of using high-current isochronous cyclotrons for monitoring subcritical assemblies and designing on this basis safe nuclear power engineering and facilities for transmutation of nuclear waste.

V.P.Dzhelepov was the first who had employed high-energy protons and other charged particles for tumour therapy. It was he who developed for the first time proton and neutron beams with energies of several hundreds of MeV for biophysical and radiobiological research in space medicine.

In addition to this large-scale research, a number of significant experimental investigations of fundamental problems of electroweak interactions, multiple production of neutral and strange particles in pr interactions at an energy of 5 GeV, hypercharge-exchange processes in kaon?proton interactions were conducted by Venedikt Petrovich.

In 1966, V.P.Dzhelepov was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (AS of the USSR). He brought up a large number of scientists whose research was widely known to the international scientific community. Many physicists and engineers, among which were tens of doctors of science and above 50 candidates of science, were supervised by V.P.Dzhelepov.

Fundamental studies performed at the synchrocyclotron and the phasotron constructed on its basis by physicists from many institutions of higher education of the Soviet Union, Russia and research centres of other JINR Member States brought to the Laboratory a wide international notice and appreciation. Thirteen scientific discoveries recorded in the State Register of the Soviet Union were made by scientists of the Laboratory. One hundred doctors of science and 250 candidates of science were prepared at LNP. Nowadays, many of the laboratory ex-scientists are heading large scientific teams at different institutions and laboratories of Russia and other JINR Member States.

Of great wideness was administrating and public activity of V.P.Dzhelepov. Since 1967, he had been acting as a deputy academician secretary of the Department of Nuclear Physics of the AS of the USSR (now RAS). He spent a lot of energy for strengthening and developing the international cooperation of scientists from the RAS and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. Venedikt Petrovich headed scientific delegations of the USSR and JINR at large international physics forums many times. In 1967-1972, he represented the USSR at the International Committee on Particles and Fields of IUPAP. In 1977-1982, V.P.Dzhelepov was a member (on behalf of the USSR) of the International Committee on Future Accelerators (ICFA) of IUPAP.

Over 25 years, Venedikt Petrovich was part of the editorial board of the "Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics". In 1970-1988, he was a member of the editorial board of the international journal "Particle Accelerators". In 1987-1993, he was a member of the editorial board of the journal "Muon Catalysed Fusion". Since 1970, he had been a member of the editorial board of the journal "Physics of Elementary Particles and Atomic Nuclei". In 1962-1970, he was a chair of the Expert Committee of the Higher Attestation Commission of the USSR in physics and astronomy. He spent a lot of his time engaged in the Intergovernmental Soviet-Danish Commission on scientific and economic cooperation (1970-1986).

The scientific and science administrating activity of V.P.Dzhelepov was widely appreciated. In 1951, he was awarded the Order of Lenin and the State (Stalin) Prize of the USSR for constructing and launching the synchrocyclotron. In 1953, he was awarded the State Prize of the USSR again, this time for the large series of investigations at this accelerator. V.P.Dzhelepov was awarded two Orders of Red Banner of Labour (in 1969 and 1974), the Order of October Revolution (1983) and the Order of Friendship (1996). He was awarded the Order of Cyril and Methodius I class of the People's Republic of Bulgaria, the Order "Golden Polar Star" of the Mongolian People's Republic, the Order of the Red Banner of Labour of the Hungarian People's Republic and other orders and medals of the JINR Member States."

"The most important principle for a leader of a scientific institution is not to impede a more talented colleague. To impede is a disaster. To support any good initiative and not to be afraid of a star coming to you with more talent than you have, with more skills, with greater ideas is a blessing. To help this colleague to unfold himself is the main task of a good leader."

"Without a team, one cannot succeed in creating anything, building anything, discovering anything or thoroughly investigating anything. One should have a good design office, good workshops, wonderful experts able to embody in metal things invented by researchers. One should have skilled craftsmen who will make exquisitely detailed things with their magical hands. If there is nothing of the sort, there is no laboratory. No one, whatever talented and smart, will be able to implement the desired. The team like above is constantly getting richer from inside in the young specialists who grow skilled before our eyes, who come with their fascinating ideas. And it is important to help them to implement these ideas."

Venedikt Petrovich was a leader of this very kind. The memories of his colleagues and staff members are heartfelt and admiring. Quoting some of them...

"He knew almost everybody at the laboratory. Knowing that I need to go for some reason to Moscow, he invited me to come with him. And during the whole two-hour trip, he asked me about project activities and assembling work and delved into every detail." (V.I.Smirnov, head of the LNP Electrotechnological Department in 1985-2007.)

"I always saw that he was interested in what was going on around him, in the results about which he always was sincerely happy. He was good-hearted. And always helped with everything he could." (Academician L.I.Ponomarev.)

"The first Dzhelepov's feature was being a physicist. The second was being a great science administrator. And the third was his caring about integration of Soviet scientists into the international scientific community. Dzhelepov respected people a lot, respected labour a lot, highly valued those who selflessly worked hard. Here, at LNP, lights would burn till ten at night. He was a strong man. He liked this work. He knew what was where, what should be patched up, repaired, painted. He was a real master." (Yu.A.Budagov, Dr. Sci. (Phys.-Math.).)

"One of his constant responsibilities was the Dissertation Council of the Laboratory whose regular chairperson he was. Council's expertise, faultless consciousness and accuracy obtained a wide recognition not only in our country. There were no little things for Venedikt Petrovich in what concerned presentation of the scientific results of the laboratory. He always reminded his staff that scientific results should not only be obtained but also explained to the scientific community. He cannot stand any laxity, blurriness in scientific papers, "Why does he lists everything he measured? Who needs it if nothing follows from it!" was he indignant over it. He entrusted the preparation of annual reports to nobody, studied a lot of data obtained at the laboratory, talked to leading scientists and achieved with them an accurate, exact and clear presentation of results." (I.G.Pokrovskaya, she was a secretary of V.P Dzhelepov for many years.)

In 1956, Venedikt Petrovich was appointed the Director of the Laboratory. In 1959, along with the staff team, he developed a cyclotron with a spiral variation of the magnetic field. In 1980-1985, on his initiative and under his guidance, a new basic facility, a high-current phasotron at 680 MeV with a spatial variation of the magnetic field based on the magnetic conductor of the synchrocyclotron, was developed at JINR. On his initiative, radiobiological and radiogenetic studies were started, resulting in the determination of tolerance doses of high-energy particles irradiation for the staff working at accelerators and cosmonauts.

In 1967, the research on application of high-velocity proton beams to cancer treatment was first started on the proposal of V.P.Dzhelepov. Later, a Medical-Technical Complex using beams of particles of different types - protons, negative pi-mesons and high-energy neutrons - was developed and constructed at the JINR phasotron.

For over thirty years, V.P.Dzhelepov served as the Director of the Laboratory of Nuclear Problems. It was during that time that the organizational structure of the laboratory was formed, the main lines of research were established, traditions of staff interrelations and attitude towards the reliability and significance of the scientific data of the laboratory took shape. In 1999, the Laboratory of Nuclear Problems of JINR was named after its first director.

The material was prepared by the science communication group
of the Dzhelepov Laboratory of Nuclear Problems