Their names are in the history of the Institute

Remembering Mikhail Fedorovich Likhachev

22 November marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Mikhail Fedorovich Likhachev, a bright representative of the generation of the 1920s of the last century that bore on his shoulders all the hardships of the Great Patriotic War and with the attitude of the winners came to science, to experimental high energy physics.

Professor M.F.Likhachev was one of the most respected and honored staff members of JINR; his life and scientific activities were tied to the Institute. In the 1950s and 1960s, he extensively participated in the first scientific and methodological investigations on the synchrophasotron at LHE. This accelerator was the world leader in the energy of accelerated protons, yet it had to be equipped for the development of secondary beams of charged particles and detectors for physical research had to be developed and implemented for the experiment. This is what the young graduate of Lomonosov Moscow State University did with his colleagues. The characteristics of elastic π⁺-р-back scattering were studied using synchrophasotron beams and the total cross sections for the interaction of π⁺ and K⁺ mesons with protons and nuclei were measured. The results of these papers were used as a basis for his Ph.D. thesis that he successfully defended in 1967.

With the development of the accelerator base in the USSR - the launch of the proton accelerator in Serpukhov - the investigations of many JINR research teams shift to IHEP. M.F.Likhachev becomes the leader of a range of experiments to study the regeneration of neutral kaons on deuterons and neutrons, to investigate the form factors in three-particle decays of neutral kaons using one of the largest facilities of that time - the BIS filmless spark spectrometer that operated online with the BESM-3M computing machine.

Since 1973, Mikhail Fedorovich headed the construction of BIS-1, BIS-2, BIS-2M spectrometers that while retaining the best features of their predecessor, the BIS spectrometer, acquired a new quality, a significant increase in the speed and efficiency of selecting the events being studied. He organized a major international collaboration, known to the world scientific community as the BIS-2 collaboration.

Part of the group of physicists of the BIS-2 collaboration, participants of the international seminar held in 2013
in honor of the 90th anniversary of the birth of M.F.Likhachev.
From left to right: D.Vestergomby (Hungary), V.Ryadovikov, S.Baranov (Russia), J.Gladki (Czech Republic), M.Kapishin (Russia), V.Genchev (Bulgaria), V.Kukhtin (Russia), A.Prokes (Czech Republic), K.Albrecht (Germany), E.Chudakov, E.Molodtsov (Russia)

The power and charm of Mikhail Fedorovich's personality attracted scientists from the GDR, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and the USSR to cooperate with BIS-2. Scientists from the institutes that were part of this collaboration, under the supervision of M.F.Likhachev, obtained unique experimental data on the investigation of the birth of strange and charmed particles and narrow baryon resonances in the interactions of neutrons with protons and nuclei. Based on the results of these investigations that found a wide response among physicists around the world, more than 200 scientific papers were published with the participation of M.F.Likhachev. A brilliant defense of his doctoral dissertation in 1989 was the result of Mikhail Fedorovich's work during this period.

Using the materials obtained, scientists from a number of JINR Member States defended three doctoral and more than 20 candidate dissertations, 17 of them were carried out under the supervision of M.F.Likhachev. For more than 30 years he was the scientific secretary of the dissertation council at LHE. High personal and business qualities, a huge store of knowledge and great creative potential provided Mikhail Fedorovich with absolute leadership in one of the most relevant areas of modern physics. He has many students that have received international recognition.

M.F.Likhachev was awarded the title of professor for the achieved scientific results and training of scientific personnel. He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, the "Badge of Honor", the Bulgarian Order of Cyril and Methodius 1st degree, the "Golden Badge" of the Polish-Soviet Friendship Society, the "Silver Badge" of the German-Soviet Friendship Society. He was a winner of the State Prize of the Georgian SSR and won many JINR awards.

For his combat path during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 from the walls of Stalingrad to Berlin M.F.Likhachev was awarded four military orders and five medals.

We often remember Mikhail Fedorovich with a bright feeling.

Friends, colleagues, students