Today, on 12 October, the Collaboration Meeting of the MPD Experiment at the NICA Facility starts in the V. I. Veksler and A. M. Baldin Laboratory of High Energy Physics JINR. It is the 8th meeting of the series that has gathered more than 150 online and offline participants from 15 countries.

Photo by Elena Puzynina

Leader of the NICA project, JINR Vice-Director Vladimir Kekelidze opened the meeting. “Only three years ago, we held the first meeting to create collaborations around the BM@N and MPD projects. Since then, the collaboration already has around 500 participants, and this number is permanently growing,” Vladimir Kekelidze highlighted. “During these three years, we have achieved a lot in the implementation of the project. Scientists are now facing the cryogenic test and then I hope we can start the assembly of the detector,” he noted.

Head of the MPD collaboration Adam Kisiel reminded of so-called Physics Working Groups created to fulfil the physics programme of the experiment. “Such Groups work on predictions for the observables, prepare for data-taking and data analysis after the first beam of NICA scheduled for 2023,” he said.

Commenting on the extension of the membership of the MPD Collaboration, Adam Kisiel has informed that at this meeting participants are going to consider the application of an institute from Slovakia to join the Collaboration that already comprises 42 institutions from 12 countries.

During three days, specialists from all over the world will discuss recent milestones in the production of the MPD apparatus in the MPD Hall. Reporters will pay special attention to the MPD Magnet system status. Participants will consider reports on the status of the production of the components of all major subdetectors, as well as their installation, commissioning and calibration schedule. The schedule fulfilment of the NICA complex construction and its commissioning, as well as plans for first beams will be presented. Scientists will introduce participants to new developments in the performance studies for physics observables carried out within the MPD Physics Working Groups, including publication plans. In addition to the physical programme of the experiment, computing and software infrastructure will be also discussed.