On signing of the agreement and launch of the linac

The 45th meeting of the JINR Programme Advisory Committee for Particle Physics was held on 20–21 June 2016 in the International Conference Hall. PAC Chairman Professor I. Tserruya informed participants about implementation of the previous meeting of the PAC for Particle Physics, and JINR Vice-Director R. Lednický reported about the resolution of the 119th Session of the JINR Scientific Council and the decisions of the spring session of the Committee of Plenipotentiaries of the JINR Member States, as well as about the preparation of the Seven-Year Plan for the Development of JINR 2017-2023.

The 45th meeting of the JINR Programme Advisory Committee for Particle Physics was held on 20–21 June 2016 in the International Conference Hall. PAC Chairman Professor I. Tserruya informed participants about implementation of the previous meeting of the PAC for Particle Physics, and JINR Vice-Director R. Lednický reported about the resolution of the 119th Session of the JINR Scientific Council and the decisions of the spring session of the Committee of Plenipotentiaries of the JINR Member States, as well as about the preparation of the Seven-Year Plan for the Development of JINR 2017-2023.

VBLHEP Deputy Head of the Accelerator Department A. Sidorin reported on the progress towards implementation of the Nuclotron-NICA project. In his interview given to journalists he noted the main achievement — a launch of a new linear accelerator LU-20.

Traditionally, several reports were dedicated to the NICA/MPD project and runs at the Nuclotron: E. Strokovsky “Report from the Nuclotron Run Coordinator”, N. Emelianov “Report on the infrastructure developments, including the Nuclotron”, V. Kolesnikov “Progress towards implementation of the MPD project, including results of simulation”. The PAC appreciated the signing of the Agreement between the Russian Government and JINR, as well as signing of the Protocol between the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China; the PAC expressed the opinion that it is important steps that will raise the international status of the NICA project and will provide additional guarantees for its timely completion in 2019. Experts also appreciated the commissioning of the injector of the LU-20 linac and the start of testing of the new source of polarized ions during the 52nd run at the Nuclotron, as well as positively assessed the progress in development of the JINR infrastructure, including infrastructure development at the Nuclotron, and in the course of implementation of the MPD project.

The PAC heard reports on the projects approved for completion in 2016, and proposals for their continuation. The following projects were presented: BM@N, transmutation of radioactive waste, BES-III, upgrade of the ALICE photon spectrometer. On the same day the new results obtained by JINR groups in the experiments ALICE, ATLAS and CMS were presented.

There was a discussion of proposals for two new projects: development of a precision magnetic spectrometer SCAN-3 (presented by S. Afanasiev) and development of the Multifunctional Information and Computing Complex (presented by V. Korenkov). Both projects were approved for the period until the end of 2019.

The PAC heard the two scientific reports: “Internal spin structure of the nucleon” (A. Sidorov) and “NA64 experiment at CERN SPS. Search for dark sector in missing energy events” (N. Krasnikov).

Young scientists from DLNP and VBLHEP presented nine poster presentations at the PAC meeting. The PAC noted the generally good quality of the results. The best poster presented by L. Kolupaeva was devoted to neutrino oscillations in the NovA experiment; this report will be presented at the meeting of the JINR Scientific Council in September 2016.

The PAC members enthusiastically received proposals of the JINR Directorate to improve the work of the Programme Advisory Committees proposal was in a part of expert evaluation of considered projects and expressed their readiness to participate actively in elaboration of these proposals.

The next meeting of the Programme Advisory Committee for Particle Physics will be held on 16-17 January 2017.

On materials of the article of Galina Myalkovskaya,
Photo by Elena Puzynina