In March, students of the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of Kamchatka State University named after Vitus Bering were sent for internship to the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. The academic exchange has happened thanks to the JINR Information Centre established in October 2021 on the basis of the University. Two students of the institution are not only learning to work in a new for them field of nuclear physics but are also solving practical tasks of the BM@N facility, one of the experiments of the NICA megascience project.

“Nowadays, a regular run of the subprogramme on the study of short-range correlations is underway. The first physical run of the major programme of the BM@N experiment will begin soon, for which active preparation is underway. Ilya and Andrey have come to JINR to solve the tasks of the software support of the experiment,” Konstantin Gertsenberger said, the scientific supervisor of the student practice at JINR, Candidate of Technical Sciences, the Head of the Group of Mathematical and Software Support of the Scientific and Experimental Department of Physics of Heavy-Ion Collisions at the NICA complex of VBLHEP JINR. He said that students had experience working with various projects, so they were ready to promptly, in 7 – 10 days, get into the subject of work and start solving important for the experiment tasks.

Ilya Zavodevkin, a 2-grade Master student, is engaged in the development of a technology aimed to visualise events in the BM@N experiment. The Phoenix Display system he is using allows graphically displaying the results of the experiment: what particles are produced and how many, in which directions they scatter in the collision.

A 3-grade Bachelor student Andrey Degodiev has joined the development of a monitoring system of states of working information services for the BM@N experiment. His task is to fulfill the infrastructure of the diagnostics system, which continuously monitors software systems of the experiment and their component, as well as visualises state parameters and notifies of occurring failures.

Ilya Zavodevkin and Andrey Degodiev in BM@N experimental hall

There is plenty of tasks at the BM@N but little staff engaged in the software support of the experiment. So we are actively involving external participants,” Konstantin Gertsenberger added. “These urgent tasks should be solved now. The work is going well although students do not have much time – only a month, until the end of March. I applied to the JINR University Centre the staff of which informed me about active cooperation with Kamchatka State University and opportunities of the Information Centre. Based on the CVs, the students were suitable for this work. It was the first such experience of interaction with the UC JINR, and I consider it successful. We need such “savvy’ students.”

Participants of the internship said that it was the Director of the JINR Information Centre at Kamchatka University Daniyal Israpilov who offered to go to JINR. According to the young scientists, it would be unwise to refuse the offer of internship at such a large-scale and famous institution. Moreover, both students noted that the tasks chosen for them were interesting and corresponded to their skills and knowledge level. Interaction with new colleagues and the supervisor was also comfortable.

“The internship turns out to be great, informative, conductive to personal growth,” Andrey Degodiev shares his impressions. “The tasks are interesting for my level, they make me think. We are guided by a highly competent supervisor Konstantin Victorovich. It is a bit early to say it – we should first finish our study – but I could work at JINR in the future if there is an opportunity.”

BM@N experimental facility

“I already have a two-year experience in the scientific environment, and I have a pre-graduate practice at JINR,” Ilya Zavodevkin says. “Despite the fact that I have a different diploma specialisation – I work at the Kamchatka branch of the Unified Geophysical Survey of RAS – all the tasks of the internship are really interesting and chosen according to the level of knowledge. Before the internship, I have studied information about JINR, and it has impressed me a lot. So during the excursion around the BM@N, I have realised the scales and how many people work on it. The work is in full swing!”

It should be reminded that the agreement on the opening of the JINR Information Centre at Kamchatka State University was signed in October 2021. Attraction of young people of the region to internships, practices, and scientific schools held by JINR is one of the priority directions of work of the Centre.

Once in two weeks, about 20 or 30 schoolstudents of 9-11 grades gather in the new Information Centre to listen to lectures by local scientists or JINR researchers or to go to virtual excursions around the JINR laboratories.

The first internship of students at JINR organized through the Information Centre in Kamchatka will motivate potential applicants of the Physics Faculty at Kamchatka University to choose the direction related to physics or information technologies. It will demonstrate the opportunities opened for students in the future.