In the wake of the departed

Igor Anatolievich Golutvin 8.08.1934 - 13.09.2023

On 13 September, at the age of 90, Professor, Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation, full member of the Academy of Engineering Sciences of the Russian Federation, the Academy of Natural Sciences of the Russian Federation, the International Academy of Sciences, a chief researcher of the Department of Physics at CMS VBLHEP Igor Anatolievich Golutvin died.

Igor Anatolievich was born on 8 August, 1934 in Moscow. He graduated from MIPT in 1957.

He was an outstanding scientist, the founder of a new area and new research techniques in the field of elementary particle physics, techniques of physical experiments, the author of more than 1400 scientific papers and three inventions, his authority is recognized at the world level. Under the supervision of I.A.Golutvin, several generations of modern large-scale physical facilities were developed for experiments at the JINR synchrophasotron, the IHEP accelerator in Serpukhov, at the proton synchrotron and the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva. All this work had a great influence on the general level of techniques of physical experiments.

The scientific activity of I.A.Golutvin at JINR started in 1958. He carried out scientific and methodological research and developed devices for automatic processing of images of bubble chambers. In the 1960s and early 1970s, on his initiative, JINR scientists and specialists, for the first time in the USSR and among the first in the world, developed experimental facilities on line with a computer based on filmless spark chambers, with the help of which a range of experiments on investigations of elastic pion-proton scattering in the area of coulomb-nuclear interference and regeneration of neutral kaons were carried out. Based on these investigations, he defended his doctoral dissertation in 1974.

From the mid-1970s to the end of the 1980s, the result of his creative activity was the development of the NA4 detector at CERN to study the deep inelastic interaction of muons, a complex of equipment for experiments at IHEP (SIGMA, neutrino detector, "Tagged neutrinos"), as well as three generations of the ANOMALON facility at the JINR synchrophasatron. During these years, his organizational talent clearly manifested itself; he was Head of a large scientific team with wide involvement of industry and branch science.

Since the early 1990s, Igor Anatolievich Golutvin has been heading and directly participating in the construction and development of facilities for new accelerator complexes, including the scientific and methodological research programme for experiments at the ultra-high energy colliders GEM at SSC and HERAB at DESY.

I.A.Golutvin is one of the initiators of the project of the experimental complex CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) at the Large Hadron Collider - a unique multi-purpose detector that has no equal in the scale of the engineering scientific project that involves the international community of physicists from more than 40 countries based on the European organization of nuclear research aimed at meeting the cornerstone issues of modern subnuclear physics. An organic and integral part of this project was the cooperation of Russia and other JINR Member States - RDMS CMS, developed under the scientific leadership of I.A.Golutvin and bringing together more than 300 scientists. Over the last thirty years, under the supervision of Igor Anatolievich, with the widespread involvement of the industrial and scientific potential of Russia, RDMS physicists have completed the development of unique detectors for the CMS facility. A long-term scientific programme of research in this experiment has been developed that has become the most important area of the Russian national programme in particle physics. A distributed grid system has been developed in Russia for storing, processing and analyzing experimental data, integrated into a worldwide system that ensures global integration of information and computing resources. All this work opened up the opportunity for Russian scientists to participate in the grandiose physics project of the 21st century at the Large Hadron Collider.

In 2009-2013, an international team headed by I.A.Golutvin carried out effective experimental investigations in the first session of the Large Hadron Collider at energies up to 7 TeV that in 2012 were resulted in the discovery of the Higgs boson at the CMS facility. The key author of this discovery is I.A.Golutvin that was awarded the European Physical Society Prize in High Energy and Particle Physics for the discovery of a new heavy particle with the properties of the Higgs boson as part of the CMS collaboration (2013). I.A.Golutvin's outstanding contribution to the development of the CMS facility, resulted in the discovery of the Higgs boson, was awarded the P.A.Cherenkov RAS Prize (2014).

Since 2013, under the supervision of I.A.Golutvin, the CMS detectors have been modernized that already in 2015-2023 allowed to provide a highly efficient data set in sessions of the Large Hadron Collider at a nominal energy of 13 TeV, to test the Standard Model and to obtain restrictions on the manifestations of new physics at record, previously unattainable energy of colliding protons.

In recent years, Igor Anatolievich carried out research on the preparation of further modernization of the CMS facility and the development of a programme of physical research at the Large Hadron Collider until the end of the 1930s of this century at very high luminosity. Under his supervision, the concept of a project for the development of calorimetry for future experiments at very high luminosity and energy was developed, with the wide participation of scientific and industrial institutes of the JINR Member States and Russia.

During his work at JINR, Professor I.A.Golutvin established a scientific school and trained a team of active, qualified physicists and engineers, whose publications are widely recognized in Russia and abroad. He brought together like-minded people within the framework of cooperation between CMS Russia and other JINR Member States that set themselves the goal of preserving Russian scientific schools, unique teams of engineers and physicists and developed favorable conditions for attracting gifted young physicists that is extremely important for the implementation of long-term scientific projects in Russia.

Igor Anatolievich was a member of the equipment committee of the International Committee on Future Accelerators (ICFA), a member of the editorial board of the journal "Nuclear Instruments and Methods", a member of the Scientific Policy Committee of the state programme of the Russian Federation "High Energy Physics", a member of the Coordination Committee of the Ministry of Science and Technical Policy of the RSFSR for cooperation with foreign countries in the field of research of fundamental properties of matter, a member of the directorate of the large international collaboration CMS at CERN, headed the project of institutes of the Russian Federation and other JINR Member States in CMS, was the organizer and head of numerous international and Russian scientific conferences and symposia.

For many years of fruitful work, I.A.Golutvin was awarded numerous state and scientific awards and prizes.

Our science and we, his close colleagues and friends, students and comrades in a common cause that have become attached to each other over all these years of a very rich creative life, have suffered a huge, irreparable loss. An outstanding scientist has left us, a leading specialist recognized throughout the world, a teacher and mentor to young colleagues, smart, charming and at the same time strict and demanding when it comes to the possibility of obtaining the highest achievements in research at the forefront of physics.

We deeply mourn and sincerely condole with family, friends and relatives for this irreparable loss.

JINR Directorate, VBLHEP Directorate, colleagues, friends

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JINR Directorate and Directorate of the RDMS CMS collaboration received numerous condolences.

Patti McBride: "Professor Golutvin made a truly enormous contribution to the development and operation of CMS, as well as to development of the collaboration."

CMS exponent Jim Virdi: "He was a giant at CMS, on whose shoulders many of us stood, bringing everything we could to perfection..."

Greg Landsberg: "He was a great man and a great physicist and we will miss him very much..."

Paris Sfikas: "I am very, very sorry to know that he left us. Please, accept my sincere condolences, I sympathize with his family and all his colleagues! Knowing how close you were, I can only imagine your sense of loss, in Greece we say: "Live long and then you will keep the memory of him for a long time." May he rest in peace!

Victor Kim (PNPI): "The departure of Igor Anatolievich Golutvin is an irreparable loss and a huge blow for Russian science, RDMS CMS, JINR. He was a profound scientist, a talented organizer, had exceptional leadership qualities and was always selflessly devoted to science. The success of RDMS CMS and all the projects in which he participated was largely due to his tireless work."

CMS exponent Guido Tonelli: "Thousands of scientists were involved in the development of CMS over decades and their contributions were decisive for the success of the experiment, but none of them would have been possible if Igor Golutvin and the other founding fathers of the experiment had not dreamed of developing a modern temple based on the most advanced technologies - the CMS detector. We will miss Igor Golutvin, his clear vision of physics, his deep knowledge of the fine details of an experiment, his charisma and his culture."