The Laboratory of High Energy Physics JINR has completed an important stage in the preparation of an experiment on SRC (Short-Range Correlation – short-range two-nucleon correlations in the carbon nucleus) at the BM@N facility of the NICA accelerator complex.

Currently, the reconfiguration of the BM@N facility has been fully completed and the assembly, adjustment, and test launch of all detecting elements have been conducted. It is necessary for the second measurement under the SRC programme scheduled for January-February 2022 with the participation of foreign colleagues.

The first measurement within the SRC programme, which, like the upcoming experiment, was carried out using a carbon beam and a liquid hydrogen target, took place in 2018. Its first results were published in Nature. Physics.

The BM@N experiment stands for Baryonic Matter at Nuclotron. It aims to use heavy ion beams accelerated at the Nuclotron to bombard a stationary target thus to study the properties of dense baryonic matter. The Nuclotron cyclic accelerator is one of the pre-accelerators of the NICA collider. Its preparation for accelerating heavy nuclei in several stages is underway. Necessary parameters are configured during acceleration runs gradually moving from the lightest nuclei to medium ones.