The special report dedicated to the 110th anniversary of Academician G.N.Flerov

"Defended. Proved. Confirmed!"

Professor Mikhail Grigorievich Itkis, FLNR Deputy Director for Scientific Work, Advisor to JINR Director

On 24 October, 2012, I had the honor to open a solemn ceremony in the Central House of Scientists of the Russian Academy of Sciences on Sretenka Str. with regard to the official recognition of the discovery and the naming of two new chemical elements with atomic numbers 114 and 116, synthesized in Dubna. Flerovium (Fl) and Livermorium (Lv) took their places in the Periodic Table of D.I.Mendeleev. At this exciting moment, many things came to mind. And above all, of course, numerous meetings and talks with the person who had established the laboratory that now bears his name and whose name is henceforth inscribed in the fundamental code of chemical elements. "What a mighty intellect has gathered in this hall today!" a longtime colleague from the Kurchatov Institute, a native of Dubna, told me on the sidelines. Indeed, outstanding people gathered in the large hall of CHS and many of them in their speeches paid tribute to the insight and perseverance of Georgy Nikolaevich that had devoted the best and most fruitful years of his long and bright life to research with heavy ions.

I met Georgy Nikolayevich in 1970 at a conference on nuclear spectroscopy in Moscow, where I gave a short report on the physics of fission of pre-actinide nuclei. I remember him coming up to our group, there were a few of us from Kazakhstan, including my supervisor Vladimir Nikolayevich Okolovich, he listened to our conversations: "You are doing a good job. So how is it? We answered him something. "Be sure to come and visit me in Dubna!" At that time, on the initiative of Flerov, winter schools on heavy ion physics were held at JINR that gave a start to life, introduced many of today's leading scientists and specialists to advanced nuclear physics research. I was always invited to these schools.

And in the large scientific area of the Soviet Union, regular meetings on atomic reactors, including several times in our city of Alma-Ata, were held under the chairmanship of Anatoly Petrovich Alexandrov. President of the USSR Academy of Sciences G.N., as Chairman of Academic Scientific Council on Applied Nuclear Physics, was Chairman of relevant section within this meeting. And I always accompanied GeenNa. I was a temporary assistant, so to speak. Well, it so happened that he began to give me some instructions and I in turn, asked him for permission to carry out experiments on heavy ions at FLNR. He gave his permission for that in 1975 and we actually started experiments in 1977 (as evidenced by the donation inscription on the book by Flerov "On the way to superelements"), and two years later we published the first joint publications with FLNR... And G.N. kept urging me: "Well, come on, finish your paper as soon as possible, we've got work to do! I mean, what I do within the framework of our scientific programmes in Kazakhstan, it is good, interesting, but it is not the main thing. This is understandable: for G.N., the main goal had always been synthesis and research of superheavy elements. From the time of establishing the laboratory in Dubna for this very purpose until his last days.

(From the article "Show me experimental data!" in the book "Georgy Flerov. Scientist, creator, pioneer".
Moscow, "Eterna", 2013)

"Mikhail Grigorievich, when preparations for the anniversary of the founder of the laboratory, including newspaper publications, were discussed in the office of the FLNR Scientific Leader, Yuri Tsolakovich suggested: "Let's show how the laboratory lives today, thirty-three years after the farewell to Georgy Nikolaevich…". Here is the topic of our conversation..."

"Today, we can say that despite the serious situation that has developed over the past few years, we are again at the forefront in our field of science. And it is very important that the traditions laid down during the establishment of the laboratory by Georgy Nikolaevich, first of all, that the experimental base should be the best go on this day. And the fact that the Factory of Superheavy Elements currently has the best intensity beams of calcium, titanium and chromium and we do not stop here is a good memory of the founder of the laboratory.

The base is constantly improved; it does not stand still, both in terms of the accelerator part and in terms of designing new facilities. And I must say that it is not easy to compete with other world centres, but we compete successfully and today, our separators are the best in the world and this is recognized by everyone. We have significantly modernized our accelerator base. First of all, the Factory of Superheavy Elements and this is understandable. Secondly, this year, we are completing the modernization of U-400M for research in the field of exotic nuclei. During the same time, we have designed new facilities, have brought the experimental base for separators to perfection. CORSET-type facilities have been improved for the research of the reactions of heavy ion interaction with nuclei, bearing in mind the prospects of these reactions for the future synthesis of elements 119 and 120. We currently improve the ACULINA separator for the investigation of exotic nuclei, including the development of a special tritium target to study very neutron-rich light nuclei.

Applied research is developed. Things go quite well in the field of condensed matter physics. Most importantly, we do not stand still in all areas.

Further, I would like to emphasize that we currently pay great attention to supporting young scientists. We already have a lot of them - there is a queue for PhD defences. We try to encourage our young colleagues so that they do not sit idly by. However, from my point of view, there is a big problem at JINR and FLNR is no exception here that the era of outstanding scientists and leaders, like Flerov, Frank, Meshcheryakov, Bogolyubov and others, has come to an end at the Institute... Of course, Oganessian is one of them...

"But it seems to me that the new generation of heads of laboratories and subdivisions of the Institute ensures a high level of research carried out at the Institute, as evidenced by the estimation of experts participating in the work of programme committees, scientific councils..."

"The point here is that we have a shortage of young, talented not just scientists, but scientific leaders who are able to unite teams, lead people, move things further, forward... I think it is very important to solve this problem - what was established by the founding fathers should be developed further... That is, human resources policy should be paid more attention."

"Mikhail Grigorievich, where and what kind of young people come to the laboratory today?"

"In recent years, a large number of young people have come to us from the JINR Member States. Primarily, from Kazakhstan. But not only. Despite certain problems, young people from other countries come to us. Indian youth wants to work at FLNR. Of course, we welcome it. And naturally, young specialists also come from our universities, from Dubna State University, from Moscow, Tomsk. MEPhI maintains close relationship with us. And we have very high hopes for this cooperation, as well as for the fact that with the establishment of a branch of Moscow State University in Dubna, new opportunities will open up for attracting talented young scientists to the laboratory. However, they do not yet have a license to directly recruit students at JINR, but we hope that after obtaining such a license, we will send students here immediately from the first year, and then this is a guarantee that they will definitely stay with us at the Institute. True, in different laboratories, in different departments. And then it will be a very good help. And if we recall the engineering school that Yuri Tsolakovich together with Grigory Trubnikov has organized, then this is also a significant contribution to the staffing of the Institute. And we also work closely with SINP MSU, there are scientists there interested in development of our topics…"

Once, when we started talking about the Superheavy Element Factory and new projects, it was in 2008-2009, even before that seven-year period, Sisakyan told me: "There is nothing to demand more money, we have problems with Nuclotron, with other projects and you are already a Red Banner laboratory, you already have everything." To which I replied: "No, dear Aleksey Norayrovich, we lack a lot, we must move forward!" We eventually defended our positions. Such movement forward continues today. This also concerns the development of the innovation centre, where we plan to position the new U-140 booster. And this will give a new impetus to the development of applied research.

We have now prepared a special project in order to carry out very complex experiments on the chemistry of superheavy substances at a high level. On the one hand, we can produce them with good efficiency, but we also need a technique for studying chemical properties, and this is another area. So they have started a special project involving the production of a gas-filled superconducting solenoid. This is a serious facility that will be used to study the chemical properties of already discovered elements with shorter lifetimes. In the first experiments, the lifetimes (alpha decay) were a few seconds and today, for 115, 117 and beyond - 50, 70 milliseconds. These are already different facilities and we keep moving in this direction.

I'm not talking about exotic nuclei and here there are some problems, such as, the choice of goals and resources: what exactly is most relevant today, what our immediate and long-term prospects are, especially since there are many centres working in this area and some have started before us and RIKEN and the Argonne Laboratory and GANIL... But today, we have a new separator, the U-400M accelerator has been upgraded. And we of course, should review our programme and do what no one else can do. That is, we will have a lot of discussions in this area, probably closer to the middle of the year, when the startup of the U-400M accelerator will take place, so that the research programme on it will be no worse than for superheavy ones. Thus, I have touched on our main, main areas, but of course, the "FLNR planet", discovered at one time by Georgy Nikolaevich concerns many phenomena of modern nuclear physics that rapidly develop all over the world.

"Several years ago, or rather in 2014, Georgy Gulbekyan, then FLNR Chief Engineer and I started a series of publications "DRIBsIII: from stage to stage", in which the epic of the development of this accelerator complex was covered in sufficient detail and consistently. There were technical breakthroughs and the enthusiasm of the participants and a focus on high results...

"For me and my colleagues, it is especially gratifying that the accelerators in the laboratory operate like clockwork, beyond praise. Our accelerator department is still very successful. This business is moving very well. As for immediate plans and long-term prospects, they are quite clearly defined. And of course, if we talk about the synthesis of elements 119 and 120, and this is a whole range of problems, both technical (beams, targets, experimental complexes, and so on) and organizational, including the work of international collaborations. We take a comprehensive approach to solving this problem, we work together with Dimitrovgrad, with Sarov, with NIIEFA, both to support our experiments and at the same time to develop new technology - new separators, a new ESR source ... We try to "grab" everything what is possible for FLNR to maintain its leading position in the world. Including at the level of the Institute. Recently, the competition commission has met and FLNR is ahead again: one first prize and two second prizes - we have been awarded the first and second prizes in experimental reseacrh and the second for scientific and methodological research. These papers have not been carried out in total for several years, but were made literally in the last two years.

In order to maintain our positions, to orientate ourselves in our movement for several years ahead, we should also educate the youth and with the development of a base for research, not stop there. And we constantly modernize something, come up with new facilities, I have given one example here, this is a very serious facility. We have kept hoping for Switzerland, for collaborators, but the situation is a little different today, so we do everything ourselves, invent everything ourselves and move forward. Therefore, everything that is done under the scientific guidance of Yuri Tsolakovich Oganessian is, indeed, the best memory of Georgy Nikolaevich. He always said: "Our laboratory must be the best, it must be at the world level." And today, I believe, it still proves that it is capable of being at the advanced world level and ahead of its competitors in these areas of science."

"Today, in all laboratories of the Institute, work is underway to preserve the memory of the founding fathers, the scientific areas that they laid down, activists of associations of young scientists and specialists are also involved in this. FLNR, it seems to me, has its own achievements in this. These are two relatively recent editions of a book about Georgy Nikolaevich and a collection about Vadim Vasilievich Volkov and books by FLNR staff that tell about the most striking research areas..."

Laying flowers at the monument to G.N.Flerov on the day of his 95th birthday.
On the photo: Yu.Ts.Oganessian, S.N.Dmitriev, M.G.Itkis. Dubna, 2008

"You are absolutely right. And better than our exhibition on the first floor with portraits of Georgy Nikolaevich and his famous sayings that have already been sold everywhere, you can't imagine. Well, the best memory of G.N., after all, is that so many discoveries were made both under him and after him ... You can't imagine a better memory. And all the names of the elements, and the reactions that began with him ... A lot of things developed under him and after him. And here, of course, Yuri Tsolakovich has made a lot of efforts. Especially, in the most difficult 1990s of his leadership, when it was infinitely difficult to startup the first separator ... And they started it up and got the first results in the most difficult time which no one then believed in ... They defended. Proved. Confirmed. And all this was. This is the memory of the great scientist. We don't forget anything..."

The materials of the special issue prepared by Evgeny MOLCHANOV,
Illustrations from the JINR photo archive