Professor Igor Savin, research director emeritus of the Veksler and Baldin Laboratory of High Energy Physics JINR, turns 90 on 7 December.

Igor Savin is a famous scientist in the field of experimental particle physics and high-energy nuclear physics. His research record is long, extensive and varied. In the 50s, he developed equipment for identifying particles, when for the first time in the USSR antiprotons were re-discovered using these detectors. In the 60s, I. Savin carried out an experiment to study the backward elastic scattering of positive pions by protons, later he joined experiments at CERN to discover interference in the decays of КS and KL that confirmed violation of CP-invariance. In the 70s, he led the construction of a spectrometer and a series of experiments for studying КL/КS – regeneration on protons, deuterons and carbon at the U-70 accelerator in Protvino. It was found that the regeneration cross-section decreases with the increasing momentum of K-mesons according to the Pomeranchuk theorem, the “Serpukhov effect” in the energy dependence of the particles and antiparticles cross-sections difference was confirmed. The studies of the regeneration of kaons became classical and were entered into the world data tables.

The JINR group led by Igor Savin made a significant contribution to the preparation of the NA4 experiment at SPS. When studying deep inelastic scattering of muons on nucleons and nuclei, γ/Z – interference was established which indicating the existence of an intermediate Z-boson discovered at CERN a year and a half later; the structure functions of protons and deuterons were measured with high accuracy (1.5%) and were included in the world database of elementary particles; the behavior of structure functions was shown to be in agreement with the QCD theory, the parameter of the QCD theory was determined with the highest accuracy at that time; it was proved that the structure functions of free and bound nucleons in the nucleus differ.

Thanks to the incredible talent of Igor Savin, the first equal cooperation with CERN was a success. It contributed to the development at JINR of the most advanced technology for construction and mass production of modern elementary particle detectors, the introduction of the latest tools and methods for experimental data processing and the establishment of strong collaboration with the world scientific community.

Since 1989 and up until now the study of the nucleon spin structure has been the main scientific interest of Igor Savin. He headed the JINR group in the NA-47 experiment, in which the spin-dependent structure functions of protons and neutrons were measured, and he took part in the HERMES experiment at DESY. Igor Savin is an active participant of the COMPASS experiment. Igor Savin was awarded the Order of Honour, the gold medal of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, the medals of the Hungarian People’s Republic and the GDR, and other awards and titles. Despite such an impressive list of achievements and awards, despite this round number anniversary, he does not intend to stop or even slow down: his active work is being continued! We congratulate Igor Savin on his remarkable anniversary and wish him good health and much success in further scientific and social activities.

VBLHEP Directorate, colleagues and friends

Congratulations from colleagues in JINR Weekly Newspaper