On 18 July, the 14th International School on Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics started in Sarov. The International Advisory Committee of the School is headed by Special Representative of the JINR Director for Cooperation with International and Russian Scientific Organizations Boris Sharkov. The School is being held with the support of the State Corporation “Rosatom”, the National Scientific Centre for Physics and Mathematics, the Russian Federal Nuclear Centre – All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Physics (RFNC-VNIIEF), the branch of Moscow State University in Sarov, and the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Photo by Rosatom

At the opening ceremony, JINR Director Grigory Trubnikov addressed participants of the School with emphasis on the traditional cooperation between JINR and MSU in conducting scientific research, as well as in organizing conferences and schools in high energy physics, gravitation, and cosmology. The JINR Director noted that the School was organized as part of the first year programme of the recently established National Scientific Centre for Physics and Mathematics in Sarov and highlighted, “It is very important that just from its first steps the National Centre for Physics and Mathematics and the Moscow University Branch in Sarov, which is a division of the Centre, have declared themselves as an influential scientific and educational structures for promoting the Russian national interregional cooperation with a very important international component.” Grigory Trubnikov also marked that neutrino physics was an important component of the JINR scientific programme, the basis of which was laid by the outstanding physicist Bruno Pontecorvo. Currently, JINR scientists are playing a leading role in a number of international experiments. Moreover, the unique Baikal-GVD neutrino telescope is one of the flagship projects of the Institute.

The scientific topics of the School cover a wide range of topical problems of neutrino physics, as well as a number of related fields of high energy physics, astrophysics, gravity, and cosmology. Up to 100 students (mainly undergraduates and postgraduates of specialised educational and research organizations) and about 20 lecturers — leading experts in neutrino physics and related fields, including foreign scientists, are participating in the School. World-renowned scientists from China, Italy, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, and Russia will deliver lectures. Among them are such well-known physicists as Professor of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) Jose W. F. Valle, Gioacchino Ranucci from the National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Milan, and Ivanka Bozovic-Jelisavcic from the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences in Belgrade.

The programme of the School includes a number of reports by scientists of the Joint Institute. DLNP Deputy Director Dmitry Naumov will talk about neutrino physics at nuclear reactors. A report by Artem Bystriakov is devoted to the S3 compact antineutrino detector. Diana Seitova (DLNP) will present the recent status and future prospects for the Baikal-GVD neutrino telescope. Alexander Zakharov (BLTP) will speak about the observational proofs of black holes at the galactic centre. Evgeny Yakushev (DLNP) will deliver his report on the direct search for dark matter. In addition, the programme includes the report by Fedor Šimkovic (Comenius University in Bratislava and BLTP JINR) “Neutrinoless double beta decay”.