At PAC meetings

Progress, plans, prospects of the NICA Project

On 26 January, the 63rd meeting of the Programme Advisory Committee for Particle Physics was held. Chair of the PAC Itzhak Tserruya opened the meeting with a minute of silence, honoring the memory of Laszlo Enkovsky (BLTP), a member of the PAC, an active supporter of JINR for many years.

Two new committee members - Professor G.G.Mkrtchyan (ANL, Yerevan) and Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences G.I.Rubtsov (INR RAS) were introduced. The Committee Chair then reported on the implementation of the recommendations of the 62nd meeting of the PAC. JINR Deputy Director Vladimir Kekelidze spoke about the implementation of the resolution of the 138th session of the Scientific Council and the decisions of the Committee of Plenipotentiaries of the Governments of JINR Member States.

Vladimir Kekelidze and Alexander Cheplakov

The report on the implementation of the Nuclotron-NICA project was presented by VBLHEP Acting Director Andrey Butenko. On 11 January, a stable beam of ¹²⁴Xe nuclei was obtained in the lower ring of the NICA Collider. For our newspaper, Andrey Valerievich commented on the event and immediate plans, "We have achieved what we wished. This is already more than enough to declare that the facility has operated. We got a xenon beam circulation. Long circulation. It's not seconds or split seconds, it's minutes and even hours. The bundle circulates confidently. Yes, there are losses but this is already a matter of technology, how to optimize and to minimize them. There are two rings in the collider. Everything is fine in the bottom. In the upper one there is already one turn and then there will be the second, third and millionth, too (this is exactly what happened while the number was being made up - Author's note). Unfortunately, we are currently in a tough framework since we need to finish the construction. To launch builders into the tunnel and nearby premises, it is necessary to stop work with the bundle for a long time. In order not to disrupt the plans of the builders and the plans that are registered in the additional agreement with the general contractor, we need to finish work with the beam at the collider by the end of February. After that, the builders will begin to install the equipment, to launch automation systems for all engineering subsystems of the collider. Without it, we still cannot take the next step in the development of the complex because without automation such a gigantic complex cannot operate regularly. Today, it is done manually. The employees that should not do it have to go on round-the-clock shifts in order to monitor and to regulate the operation of engineering equipment that can freeze in such frosts if measures are not taken."

Andrey Butenko and Alexey Guskov

The report presented by VBLHEP Deputy Chief Engineer Konstantin Mukhin was dedicated to the engineering infrastructure of the NICA Complex. "In order to act within the framework of the Basic Sanitary Rules for Radiation Safety-99 that regulate the operation with ionizing radiation sources, we needed to make an access system and a radiation monitoring system," Konstantin Alexandrovich said. "A year ago, the systems were physically absent, one might say: doors were installed but they did not close, there were no access points, certain buttons, boards and so on. Our employees have done a very great job of connecting these systems, automating them, moreover, permission was obtained from Rostekhnadzor, without which it would be impossible to start the bundle.

The next big success is the cryogenic system that for the first time in December was able to make money on all our accelerators - Nuclotron, Booster and Collider. Our specialists of the cryogenic system still safely cool the collider, no critical situations that could prevent us from doing it are observed.

Another key task is the automation of the overall engineering systems of the site. I don't want to utter grandiose words, but we are moving towards the fact that the VBLHEP site will become a really "smart city" and not just in words. The difficulty was that in some buildings, wells it is very important to estimate the groundwater level and such monitoring could not be implemented without digging up the entire site for laying new communications. And we managed to do it. The colleagues found equipment and a way to transmit signals over 220 V power cables, like in our outlet. This is quite a difficult task but they did it. Thanks to it and given that electricity is available almost everywhere: in any pump or system, you can automate or monitor each device, despite the lack of low-current signal transmission cables. You can transfer data via power cables without digging the site and even using old Soviet equipment. The specialists of the cryogenic system also have a big task, in addition to adjusting the equipment, to complete nitrogen recondensation systems. It is necessary to install some equipment, it will allow making a closed cycle, when evaporating nitrogen after thermal screens will not fly into the atmosphere, but will return to the system and recondensate. It will substantially reduce resource costs and we will not be dependent on nitrogen suppliers."

The PAC meeting continued with a report on the implementation of the MPD Project, presented by the chief researcher at VBLHEP Victor Ryabov. Unforeseen technical difficulties resulted in a delay in mapping the field of the superconducting solenoidal magnet. The magnet was cooled to 4.5 K and operated successfully at 0.3 T. Work to achieve a regular magnetic field of 0.5 T is underway. The results of measurements of the first magnetic field map at a voltage of 0.2 T are processed at the INP (Novosibirsk). Measurements will resume in February. TPC sensor assembly will begin in February after testing for high voltage and tightness. More than 95% of ECal semi-sectors are ready for installation, the rest of the components will be ready by April. All other components for the first stage of MPD, including the time-of-flight system (TOF), front fast detector (FFD) and front hadron calorimeter (FHCal), are basically ready to be installed. Installation of the carbon fiber support frame and detector subsystems will begin in March. A comprehensive programme of physical justifications for the MPD facility is currently developed, the results of which have already been published in two collaboration papers.

DLNP Deputy Director Alexey Guskov spoke about the preparation for the SPD experiment, "We currently work on developing the initial configuration of the SPD detector. The main areas of our efforts for 2026 will be the signing of a contract for the production of a magnet yoke, the development of the cryogenic infrastructure of our detector and the organization of the production of a superconducting cable for the SPD magnet. The tender will be announced in early February. In other areas, work is underway with prototypes of detectors and subsystems, significant progress has been made in the development of the computer infrastructure of the experiment. Two new members have joined the SPD collaboration - Shandong University (Qingdao) and the University of Science and Technology of China (Hefei). High conference activity has been highlighted. We have participated in all major profile conferences, primarily, in SPIN 2025 in China. Young people come to work with us. In general, everything is fine."

The progress in the implementation of the BM@N Project, presented by Head of the Department of Baryon Matter at Nuclotron MIkhail Kapishin, was highly appreciated by the PAC members. The BM@N team is focused on improving algorithms for reconstructing particle trajectories and identifying them, estimating the degree of centrality of Xe-CsI collisions at an energy of 3.8 AHeV. Research on the directed flow of deuterons, the production of Λ-hyperons, K⁰-mesons and light nuclear fragments is currently carried out. An article on the production of protons, deuterons and tritons during argon interactions with nuclei at an energy of 3.2 AHeV was published in the journal JHEP in 2025. This year, the physical launch of the BM@N experiment with a beam of xenon nuclei at energies of 2-3 AHeV is scheduled. The PAC recommended an A-rated extension of the BM@N project for five years starting in 2027.

Further reports were presented on the results of investigations implemented by JINR groups in experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. E.P.Rogochaya spoke about the new results obtained by the JINR team in the ALICE experiment. The report on the participation of the JINR group in the ATLAS experiment was presented by T.V.Lyubushkina. The report of V.Yu.Karzhavin was dedicated to activities within the framework of the CMS experiment. The members of the PAC approved the participation of JINR, including young scientists, in these projects, emphasized a large number of publications and reports at various conferences and seminars.

At the meeting of the Programme Advisory Committee, two scientific reports were given: "JINR Neutrino Programme" was presented by DLNP Deputy Director Dmitry Naumov, "Exclusive measurement of the population of 1p proton states in the quasi-elastic reaction ¹²C(p,2p)¹¹B with a large pulse transmission" was presented by the senior researcher at VBLHEP Maria Patsyuk.

The competition for the best poster report was attended by 23 young scientists from BLTP, DLNP and VBLHEP. The Committee highlighted the report "The first results of the JUNO experiment on the parameters of solar neutrino oscillations", prepared by the junior researcher at DLNP Dmitry Dolzhikov, for presentation at the session of the Scientific Council in February 2026.

Dmitry Dolzhikov

The next PAC meeting for Particle Physics is scheduled for 15-16 June.

Galina MYALKOVSKAYA,
photos by Igor LAPENKO