Yesterday, on 15 May, the 10th Collaboration Meeting of the BM@N Experiment started at Saint Petersburg University (SPbU). The event is taking place in a mixed format. Participants are considering results of the first physical experiment that a team of the project conducted during the 4th commissioning run at the NICA Complex. They are also discussing further plans of the collaboration. Representatives of scientific centres of Russia, Bulgaria, and Israel are taking part in the meeting.

The current collaboration meeting focuses on the reconstruction and identification of strange particles, as well as analysis of event topologies of Xe+Cs interactions collected during the 4th commissioning run at the NICA Complex. Participants are reviewing the physics analysis of previously collected argon-nucleus interactions. In addition, they are discussing a physics programme and experimental set-up in the next BM@N experimental run.

Head of the Collaboration, Head of the Department of the Baryon Matter Investigations at the VBLHEP Nuclotron, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics Mikhail Kapishin reported on the status and results of the BM@N Project and Collaboration. In total, 189 participants from 10 institutes of the three countries are currently involved in the collaboration of the BM@N Experiment. By 2022, experts have implemented the facility configuration with full acceptance of detectors. They have already carried out experimental runs using beams of deuterons, carbon and argon nuclei. Participants of the collaboration have conducted the physical run using xenon beams. In the future, the collaboration is going to carry out the analysis of production of hyperons, mesons, light nuclear fragments in interactions of xenon with caesium iodide. Participants of the experiment will define interaction centrality classes at the facility and analyse a collective flow of protons. The possibility of conducting physical experiments at Bi beams in 2024 will depend on the status of the NICA Collider. To conduct such experiments, the project team is modernising the BM@N hybrid track system.

BM@N Chief Engineer, Deputy Head of the VBLHEP Scientific and Experimental Department of the Multi-Purpose Detector MPD Semen Piyadin spoke about the development of the facility itself and the vacuum ion beam pipe, which is a beam transportation channel from the Nuclotron to the BM@N Experimental Hall.

The BM@N Institutional Board Meeting was held separately and focused on organizational issues of the collaboration, as well as consideration of the Almaty group application to the BM@N Collaboration. The group includes representatives from the Institute of Physics and Technology, Almaty. On the following days of the BM@N Collaboration Meeting, participants will discuss status of detectors of the facility and results of the analysis of experimental data already obtained in previous runs. The agenda of the event also includes a meeting on the BM@N software status.

Moreover, on 16 May, within the framework of the meeting, scientists are going to deliver lectures on the status of the NICA Complex and physics of relativistic nuclear collisions at the Faculty of Physics of SPbU in Peterhof.

The meeting will last until 19 May.