At the PAC meetings

Nuclear Physics: at high activity

The results of the PAC meeting for Nuclear Physics, held on 13-14 June in the International Conference Centre, are commented on by Deputy Scientific Leader of the Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions Professor Mikhail ITKIS.

Mikhail Grigorievich, you took part in many previous meetings of this Committee. What, in your opinion, are the distinctive features of the one that has just been completed?

- Unlike a number of previous ones, the current meeting was marked by very high activity of representatives from France, South Korea, South Africa, Italy and Russia that participated in the meetings in person. Committee members from Bulgaria, Brazil, China and India participated remotely. It is very important that the participation was so active and interested. Many issues were brought up at the meetings.

The first part, as usual, was dedicated to the decisions of the session of the Scientific Council, of the Committee of Plenipotentiaries, the Chairman of the PAC reported on the decisions of the previous meeting and then there was a consideration of quite interesting, from my point of view, reports presented by quite young people.

FLNR junior researcher Nikita Kovrizhnykh gave a report on the latest achievements of the Laboratory in the field of synthesis and investigation of decay properties of isotopes of superheavy elements on the new gas-filled separator DGFRS-2, installed on the channel of the cyclotron DC-280 at the Superheavy Element Factory. These data are of great importance for the identification of element 120 that can be synthesized in the reaction ⁵⁴Cr+²⁴⁵Cm.

The results of the first experiments on the fragment separator ACCULINNA-2 were presented to the members of the PAC NP by Vratislav Chudoba, a senior researcher at FLNR, a representative of the Czech Republic permanently working at JINR. After a three-year reconstruction, experiments have started on this facility that have greatly interested both the members of the Committee sitting in the hall and those participating in the meeting remotely.

Head of the Scientific and Technological Department of Accelerators at FLNR Vasily Semin presented a report on the status of the U-400M accelerator. In early May 2024, after testing the main U-400M systems in autonomous mode, comprehensive commissioning started, during which the first ion beam was obtained. Upon completion of the full range of tests, the accelerator facility will be put into operation. The first experiments are scheduled for the second half of 2024.

The second that interested everyone, of course, was the scientific reports. Dmitry Podgainy informed the participants of the meeting about the state of our information centre, including the supercomputer "Govorun", about its capabilities, what is carried out, what will be carried out, how we will be connected through the computer centre with the JINR Member States and so on.

And a very interesting report, from my point of view, was given by FLNR Director Alexander Bugay. A very good report on what can be used concerning the development of applied research. This is very important, because we simultaneously develop a new accelerator at FLNR for flash therapy, testing oncology techniques and so on and they can cooperate and also, our radiobiologists have the opportunity to use almost all types of radiation, that is, beams from the FLNR cyclotrons and ARIADNA at the NICA complex, that is, the range of possibilities significantly expands.

And of course, the third, the participants of the meeting highlighted concerned the reports of young scientists. The authors were the young employees of the Laboratory of Nuclear Problems. And I will say that all six reports were well prepared. They are mainly related to neutrino physics, both with our facility at the Kalinin Nuclear Power Plant and with the projects in which the Laboratory of Nuclear Problems widely participates and develops this area. And another report presented by the Laboratory of Nuclear Problems concerns obtaining low temperatures close to Kelvin, -273 degrees. That is, I really liked both the number and quality of the reports presented. Everyone listened with interest and asked interesting questions.

The online participants were also very active, the speakers barely had time to answer their questions both in the main reports and during the discussions. I liked this Committee precisely because of its activity. We currently live through a kind of intermediate stage: the programme for the coming years has been determined. However, the activity does not decrease. And even the usually silent representative of South Korea did not lag behind everyone else...

During the meeting, the results of the competition of reports of young scientists on research in the field of nuclear physics were summed up. Members of the PAC NP marked the three best reports: Elena Kurakina, "Obtaining trivalent radionuclides for nuclear medicine and analysis using nuclear spectrometry methods", Dmitry Ponomarev, "Status of the Ricochet experiment" and Victoria Dik, "Tracking multi-channel alerts with the Baikal-GVD telescope in real time". Victoria Dick's report has been selected for presentation at the 136th session of the Scientific Council that will be held in September 2024.

On 14 June, at the end of the meeting of the members of the Programme Advisory Committee for Nuclear Physics with JINR Directorate, the recommendations of the PAC were accepted and proposals for the agenda of the next, 59th meeting were considered.

Mikhail Grigorievich, summing up one of the current events in our scientific and organizational life, I would like to ask you to share your opinion about an extraordinary event that will certainly remain in the memory of many of our colleagues...

- In general, we live in very interesting times. One can remember that exactly 13 years ago, Vladimir Putin for the first time visited to our Institute. And it precisely concerned the first consideration of megaprojects in Russia at that time. And at that meeting after the visit, at which he learnt about the Nuclotron and the exhibition about what is carried out at JINR in the field of both fundamental and applied research and at the meeting of the State Council that was held in the same International Conference Centre, it was selected two megascience projects. These are NICA (Dubna) and PIK (Gatchina). After 13 years, Vladimir Putin visits again, yet not the Nuclotron, but the collider, the launch of which, for a number of well-known reasons related to the supply of equipment, is delayed. Nevertheless, by the end of the year, the basic configuration will be ready for launch. This is such a significant event: a person that 13 years ago gave the go-ahead to support megascience projects and out of six, two were supported, including ours, again visits a project that has practically been implemented.

The event is definitely significant. And of course, it's nice that there has been a strong change in the President's position towards science. He constantly supports the development of science and technology in his speeches. It means that both Dubna and its science will develop successfully.

The conversation was conducted by Evgeny MOLCHANOV