On 22 January 2024, the 59th meeting of the JINR Programme Advisory Committee for Particle Physics took place at the JINR International Conference Centre. As always, the NICA Project was the central point on the PAC meeting agenda. During the workday, members of the Committee considered progress reports of ongoing projects, as well as proposals for launching new ones and extending completed ones. The Committee members considered reports on the scientific results of some (mainly external) JINR projects in particle physics. The poster session of young scientists concluded the event.

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Opening the meeting, Сhairman of the PAC Itzhak Tserruya presented an overview of the implementation of the recommendations of the previous PAC meeting. JINR Vice-Director Vladimir Kekelidze highlighted the Resolution of the 134th session of the JINR Scientific Council (September 2023) and the decisions of the JINR Committee of Plenipotentiaries (November 2023) as well as the adopted Seven-Year Plan for the development of JINR for 2024-2030.

Anatoly Sidorin, Deputy Head of the VBLHEP JINR Accelerator Division, elaborated on the implementation of the Nuclotron-NICA Project. One of the most remarkable achievements of the last year was the completion of the assembly of two new experimental stations for applied research at NICA: ISCRA (Irradiation Station of Components of Radioelectronic Apparatus) and SIMBO (Station for Investigation of Medical Biological Objects). Both facilities are ready for operation with a charged particle beam.

As Anatoly Sidorin reported, employees of the division are actively preparing for the phased launch of the collider. “In the second half of the year, we will start a technical run of the collider, including tests of cryogenic and vacuum systems as well as power and protection ones. As the equipment is prepared, a decision will be made to carry out a session with the beam,” Anatoly Sidorin noted.

After the commissioning runs, two four-month sessions will be carried out annualy. It will require additional resources, including personnel. To tackle this problem, the number of automatic systems of the complex will be increased. “The required systems will operate in remote control in order to concentrate the employees in the main control room and ensure the work of the complex from one location. This will reduce the number of operators, but will significantly increase the requirements for their qualification,” Anatoly Sidorin emphasised. The training of the personnel of the division started with a lecture series (23 lectures) on operation principles of the main accelerator complex systems and the functions of personnel during their work. As Anatoly Sidorin added, it was decided to form a new department at VBLHEP JINR whose main task will be to ensure the operation of the complex during runs.

The PAC took note of the report on the development of VBLHEP infrastructure, including the Nuclotron Facility, presented by VBLHEP Chief Engineer Nikolay Agapov. The construction of a new building of the collider is in its final stage. The Tavrida Energo Stroy company group is chosen the main contractor of this project. Construction of the compressor and cryogenic systems is well underway, their final tests are scheduled for May-September 2024. By the decision of Rostekhnadzor of December 2023, the main transformer substation (GPP1) of the complex was transferred from the mode of test run to the permanent operation. All equipment of the substation was updated; an automated control panel was launched. The construction of the NICA Innovation Centre is scheduled to start in June 2024. At the moment, an entrance and construction sites have already been developed for it.

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Spokesperson of the MPD Collaboration Victor Riabov elaborated on the progress of work of the MPD Project at NICA. To date, one of the key results is the assembly and test launch of the cryogenic system for superconducting magnet. The team managed to cool the solenoid to ‑50°C. Cooling to liquid nitrogen and helium temperatures will begin in January. “We expect to complete the detector assembly by the end of 2024 and start the data collection next year,” Victor Riabov reported.

At the meeting, progress in the implementation of the BM@N Project, presented by collaboration spokesman Mikhail Kapishin, was highly appreciated. After the physical session of the experiment on an extracted beam of Xe nuclei, accelerated in the Booster-Nuclotron Complex, during which about 550 million events of interaction of xenon with the CsI target were detected, the BM@N team’s efforts focused on upgrading the detectors and improving the tracking algorithm. “In autumn, the first processing of the recovery data registered in the collisions was carried out with the services of MLIT. The signals of the Λ-hyperon and K⁰-meson were restored and their physical analysis is carried out,” Mikhail Kapishin reported.

The next BM@N physical experiment is expected to be carried out with a xenon beam at a reduced energy of 2-3 A GeV. For this purpose, the tracking system is updated, additional silicon detectors are planned to be installed, the upgrade of the external tracker is completed. As Mikhail Kapishin added, future BM@N research will include experiments on heavier nuclei, up to bismuth.

Leader of the SPD Collaboration Alexey Guskov presented the updated version of the Technical Design Report (TDR) of the experiment. He also elaborated on the main systems of the detector and current status of work. The SPD Collaboration includes more than 300 participants from 35 research centres in 15 countries. Last year, 6 new organizations joined it. Among the changes in the Technical Design was the increase in the size and weight of the detector, improvement in the maintenance and transportation system, and modernization of aerogel detectors. Several detector systems have been upgraded for their use in the first SPD configuration.

Responsible employees presented the reports on projects concluding in 2024 and proposals for their extension: SCAN-3 (Sergey Afanasiev), ALPOM-2 (Nikolay Piskunov), and DSS (Vladimir Ladygin). Proposals for new projects were made: FLAP (Anton Baldin) and HyperNIS+SRC (Alexander Averianov). The PAC supported to conduct these experiments. At the same time, high priority given to the NICA flagship projects will make it questionable whether beam time will be available for other experiments. The PAC expects that a strategy for using accelerators will be developed for the next 2‑3 years and is ready to help in its implementation.

The PAC took note of the reports on the scientific results obtained by the JINR groups participating in the LHC Experiments at CERN, presented by Elena Rogochaya (ALICE), Evgeny Khramov (ATLAS), and Vladimir Karzhavin (CMS). In addition to the results of physical analysis, the PAC highly appreciated the participation of JINR employees in the projects of the second phase of modernisation of the facilities for operation in the conditions of increased luminosity of the HL-LHC Collider.

David Chokheli and Maria Patsyuk presented the reports “Status of the COMET Project” and “Preparation of the SRC Experiment”, respectively.

The JINR Directorate held a closed meeting with the PAC members; recommendations of the PAC were adopted and proposals for the agenda of the 60th meeting, that is to be held on 17-18 June 2024, were considered. At the end of the meeting, the results of the poster presentations by young scientists on particle physics research were summarised. Alexey Sheremetyev, a VBLHEP employee, became the winner of the poster session with a report on the development of silicon microstrip detectors for experiments at the NICA Accelerator Complex.