Meridians of cooperation

JINR and NRU HSE: agreement signed

In March 2024, an agreement was signed between the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research and the National Research University Higher School of Economics giving a start to cooperation. It identified the main areas: participation in experiments of the NICA megascience project, cooperation in the field of theoretical and mathematical physics, information technology and personnel training.

On 14 June, the first working meeting on the implementation of this agreement was held at JINR. The meeting was carried out in sections dedicated to the above-mentioned areas, another one was dedicated to the social and humanitarian aspects of scientific discourse. The plenary session of the meeting was opened by Acting Director of the Laboratory of High Energy Physics Andrey Butenko. The latter, after greeting, informed the guests about the status of the NICA megascience project. "Our bar is high and this is the highest level for the country and the world. We easily compete with the world's leading centres in our field and we should carry out further work in the same area, attract new scientists: mathematicians, physicists. We will expand cooperation with you. Currently, we launch the collider, in a year, the first data will appear, then everything will grow exponentially, so your participation in the project is necessary not only for you, but also for us," Andrey Butenko noted.

JINR Chief Scientific Secretary Sergey Nedelko briefly spoke about JINR, emphasizing that the Institute is one of the leaders among international intergovernmental scientific organizations in terms of standards, range and efficiency of research, as well as of the number of personnel. He also noted that JINR and HSE, due to their multidisciplinary nature and the specifics of their work organization, have a very high potential for developing cooperation.

Senior Director for Research and Development at the National Research University Higher School of Economics Alexey Sudarikov presented the structure and areas of activity of the Higher School of Economics that is a large scientific and educational complex. "Two interdisciplinary research centres can develop new synergies between themselves, can cooperate and find partners that will be mutually interested in joint work," Alexey Sudarikov commented on the potential for cooperation.

The meeting then included several parallel sections dedicated to possible cooperation between JINR and HSE. There were substantive discussions of the scientific programme of the experimental collaborations MPD, SPD, BM@N NICA, mathematical techniques in life sciences, some aspects of modern mathematics and mathematical physics, as well as the development of information technologies for storing and processing data from physical experiments. They discussed the possibilities of training highly qualified scientific personnel, including student practices and internships at JINR.

"JINR and HSE have been working together on the MPD, BM@N and SPD experiments of the NICA project for a long time. The HSE research group, one of the strongest in this field in Russia, is engaged in machine learning and its application in elementary particle physics. The section summed up the results of the current cooperation and outlined the areas for its further development," Deputy Chief Scientific Secretary of the Institute Alexey Zhemchugov commented.

Director of the Laboratory of Information Technologies Sergey Shmatov spoke about the section for the development of information technologies for storing and processing data from physical experiments. The discussion was dedicated to the tasks of the NICA project; two main issues were raised at the section: organization of the data processing and analysis process, including optimization of data flows and their storage, algorithms and software for reconstruction and analysis. A significant part of the reports was dedicated to the use of artificial intelligence techniques for data processing and decision-making algorithms.

MLIT staff presented reports on the Multifunctional Information and Computing Complex, the development of the Govorun supercomputer, including the GPU component of the platform, techniques and algorithms used at MLIT, machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques for determining the characteristics of the trajectory of charged particles. HSE representatives spoke about their experience in developing an infrastructure for the use of machine learning models in software stacks of high energy physics experiments and the use of supercomputer calculations for simulating physical processes. "We understood each other's mutual interests, narrowed down the areas for further discussion and decided to hold several seminars at HSE and MLIT JINR on individual issues," Sergey Shmatov said.

In addition, MLIT specialists introduced to the students the Laboratory's programmes for students and invited HSE to participate in conferences and an IT school held by the Laboratory. "Ideally, it is necessary that while undergoing practical training or internship at JINR, students not only complete the task set before them at the Institute, but go on working on it in their research group upon returning to the university," Sergey Shmatov emphasized. The discussion on the training of highly qualified scientific personnel was held at the section "Mathematical methods in life sciences", at which Director of the JINR University Centre Dmitry Kamanin made a report on the educational programmes of the UC.

In the section "Modern Mathematics and Mathematical Physics", representatives of both organizations made reports in the field of representation theory and integrated models. These widely developing research areas are not only fundamental building blocks of modern mathematics and mathematical physics, but also have great applied significance in high energy physics and condensed matter theory. In these areas, the JINR Laboratory of Theoretical Physics and the HSE Faculty of Mathematics will complement each other and combine different approaches. "During the discussion, points of intersection of research programmes were identified and possible areas of cooperation were outlined. Prospects for organizing similar joint events in the future were also discussed," senior researcher at the Laboratory of Theoretical Physics, the curator of the section Alexander Povolotsky summarized.

JINR and HSE have long-standing cooperation in sociology, cultural studies and history, where JINR acts as a very interesting platform for applied sociological research for HSE humanities scholars. HSE specialists have also joined the work related to the establishment of a new JINR museum and development of the museum archive. According to Deputy Chief Scientific Secretary of the Institute Alexey Zhemchugov, the Museum of History of Science and Technology of the Joint Institute is expected to expand significantly in the near future. As for maintaining the archive, HSE specialists noted that a scientific organization with a 70-year history needs not only an official archive of documents, but also the creation of an archive of historically significant scientific artifacts, personal belongings, photographs and the preservation of many other units of the Institute's "cultural layer". The archives of B.M.Pontecorvo, I.M.Frank, M.G.Meshcheryakov and of other founding fathers still need to be deciphered and digitized. "The HSE will provide a serious scientific and methodological base for this work to support specialists in the historical profile working in today's JINR museum," Alexey Zhemchugov noted.

JINR Press Office