The 4th Collaboration Meeting of the BM@N Experiment at the NICA Facility was held on 14 – 15 October in the Veksler and Baldin Laboratory of High Energy Physics. The event was attended by 120 scientific staff members and engineers from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Georgia, Germany, Israel, Poland, Russian scientific centres, namely ITEP, INP, NRC “Kurchatov Institute”, MEPhI, SINP MSU, LPI, as well as representatives of industrial companies.

Photo by Igor Lapenko

The meeting was opened by JINR Vice-Director R. Lednický. At the plenary session, reports on the project were made. Head of the Collaboration, Head of the Sector of Detectors and Data Analysis M. Kapishin told about the present state of the BM@N project. Technical Coordinator A. Maksimchuk made a report on the modernization of the experimental facility. Some reports considered particular systems and the analysis of experimental data in greater detail. Deputy Head of the Accelerator Department A. Sidorin told about the progress in work on the creation of the booster and the Nuclotron. The report by F. Guber (INR RAS) considered FHCAL, a new zero-degree calorimeter. D. Kahlbow told about the current status of data analysis in the SRC project on the search for short-range correlation.

The Collaboration Meeting was divided into three sections dedicated to detectors, data processing and software. In total, 40 reports were presented.

Videoreport by SID JINR on the Collaboration Meeting

The BM@N project (Baryonic Matter at Nuclotron) is the first experiment at the constructed NICA accelerator complex. Nowadays, 234 scientists from 11 countries participate in the Collaboration. Three runs of irradiation of the facility by carbon, argon and krypton ion beams have been conducted. Now, the data processing and modernization of detectors are underway. Nowadays, scientists pay much attention to work necessary for preparing the BM@N facility to the experimental programme with heavy ions.

Technical Coordinator A. Maksimchuk commented on the milestones of the meeting: “Reports presented at the 4th Collaboration Meeting covered the present state and plans for work on the BM@N project. Moreover, reporters paid much attention to the issues of international cooperation as far as the creation of such a large-scale project cannot be made by a single scientific institute. We would like to highlight great progress in the analysis of experimental data and preparing the facility for future runs as well.”

JINR Weekly Newspaper