At the end of the year

VBLHEP - 70. At the anniversary seminar

On Friday, 22 December, the large hall of the Cultural Centre "Mir" became the venue for a festive scientific seminar dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the Laboratory of High Energy Physics of JINR. Presenter Sergey Merts explained: "It is on Fridays that laboratory staff gather at a laboratory seminar that has been invariably being held for several decades. And today, we did not deviate from the tradition and also decided to hold a seminar. But the seminar is festive one!"

The seminar was opened by Acting Director of VBLHEP, candidate of technical sciences Andrey Butenko that dedicated his speech to a brief history of the laboratory and its scientific achievements. On this festive evening, many laboratory employees were awarded various prizes from the Ministry of Education and Science, Rosatom and the Governor of the Moscow Region that were presented throughout the evening.

The participants and guests of the event were warmly welcomed by Director of the Institute Academician Grigory Trubnikov that awarded a number of employees with JINR Honorary Diplomas. Gratitude and Certificates of Honor were awarded by Head of the Dubna city district Maxim Tikhomirov.

Heads of JINR Laboratories addressed the celebrants with greetings: Deputy Scientific Director of the Laboratory of Information Technologies Tatyana Strizh, Director of the Laboratory of Theoretical Physics Dmitry Kazakov, Director of the Laboratory of Nuclear Problems Evgeny Yakushev.

Certificates of honor and gratitude were awarded to the laboratory staff by Deputy Chairman of the Council of Deputies of the Dubna Urban District Andrey Tamonov.

The scientific programme of the seminar was opened by the report of JINR Vice-Director, Corresponding Member of the RAS Vladimir Kekelidze "70 years of successful work". Thus, the festive and awards session smoothly flowed into the scientific one.

Development of the synchrophasotron was akin to a feat, as the presenter noted. But no less a feat had been the construction and launch of the Nuclotron 30 years ago, in 1993. It was Europe's first superconducting heavy ion accelerator. One of the pioneers in the development of superconducting magnets at JINR, Deputy Director of the Laboratory of High Energy Physics for Scientific Work, Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Hamlet Khojibagiyan was invited to the stage to give a report. He spoke about the stages of developing the superconducting magnetic cryostat system of the Nuclotron.

The NICA accelerator complex that is currently going to be launched at VBLHEP, becomes a full-fledged successor to the brilliant scientific achievements of the Synchrophasotron and Nuclotron. The main scientific goal of this project will be the investigation of the properties of dense baryonic matter. Once the NICA collider starts operating, JINR scientists will be able to recreate in laboratory conditions a special state of matter in which our Universe was in the first moments after the Big Bang - strongly interacting quark-gluon plasma (QGP). A report on the new accelerator complex "NICA - present and future" was presented by Deputy Head of the Accelerator Department for scientific work, Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Anatoly Sidorin.

The Laboratory of High Energy Physics has always been famous not only for its excellent equipment for implementing physics experiments, but also for its first-class experimental physicists. At NICA, the flagship experiment for studying heavy ion collisions will be the MPD Multipurpose Detector. Head of the MPD collaboration, chief researcher, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics of VBLHEP Viktor Ryabov introduced the report "Physics of Heavy Ion Collisions" to the seminar participants. The scientific schemes and projects presented in the reports were supplemented with video and sound from the film "People of High Energies".

The festive programme of the anniversary seminar ended on the site of the historical synchrophasotron building, where wonderful music was performed by Vadim Eilenkrig and the group "Eilenkrig Crew".

Evgeny MOLCHANOV,
photo by Elena PUZYNINA