Medals of the Russian Academy of Sciences for young scientists and students are awarded annually in 21 scientific disciplines. The competition is held to encourage talented scientific youth and promote the professional growth of researchers. According to the results of the competition in 2020, employees of the Laboratory of High Energy Physics Ilya Gorbunov, Andrey Galavanov, Elena Kulish, and Yulia Ivanova were awarded medals with prizes for outstanding scientific achievements.

A VBLHEP senior researcher, Candidate of Physics and Mathematics Ilya Gorbunov won the RAS medal in the fields of nuclear physics for his research paper “Checking the Standard Model and search for new physics using research on polarization effects in the CMS experiment at the LHC”. In the frames of the CMS collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider, he has carried out the precision check of the electroweak theory by measuring the forward-backward asymmetry at the energy of 7 and 8 TeV of colliding beams in the previously unexplored range of invariant masses of lepton pairs. Thus, he has shown that the measured values are in agreement with the predictions of the Standard Model. The forward-backward asymmetry is extremely sensitive to the signals of the New Physics, that is why Ilya continues his study at a collision energy of 13 TeV.

“I studied polarization effects at the Compact Muon Solenoid at CERN. A team of JINR researchers stood at the origins of it and continues to take an active part in the experiment. CMS is an amazing fusion of advanced physical ideas, supermodern technologies – from electronics to the data processing and analysis technologies – and, of course, a creative multinational team,” Ilya Gorbunov said. “Acquired experience and international contacts will be definitely useful in work on Russian projects and, first of all, at the NICA collider in Dubna. I would like to thank colleagues and everyone who helped me in my creative way, who provided me with conditions necessary to win this award.”

Ilya Gorbunov

A junior researcher Andrey Galavanov, a researcher Elena Kulish, and a junior researcher Yulia Topko (Ivanova) won the award in the fields of the development and creation of devices, techniques, and new scientific-technical products of scientific and applied significance for their scientific paper “Development and creation of the tracking system for the BM@N facility based on GEM detectors”.

“Scientific paper submitted for the competition is dedicated to the creation of the central tracking system of the BM@N experiment. This is the first experiment in the frames of the NICA project. Conditions for its implementation impose strict requirements for detectors. The basis of the tracking system is Gas Electron Multipliers (GEM detectors). This type of detector well suits the conditions of the experiment, namely the high intensity of the heavy-ion beam and the high multiplicity of interaction products. The central tracking system consists of 14 GEM detectors with the world-largest active area. Together with Andrey, we are engaged in work related to the detectors: from their assembly to tests at Nuclotron beams,” Elena Kulish commented the work.

Yulia Topko added, “My role in the work was to develop a digital device for debugging and testing VA162, VA163 chips, which are the basis of the signal removal electronics from GEM detectors. At the moment, the creation of new electronics with high reading frequency based on the TIGER chip is underway. This is necessary for the operation of detectors at heavy-ion beams.”

“The creation of such a large-scale system is a big project involving a lot of people. Together with our senior colleagues Anna Maksymchuk, Alexander Makankin, Sergey Khabarov, and others, we have done a lot of work, and now the central tracking system is almost fully completed, It is a pleasure for us that our common work received such a high award,” Andrey Galavanov said.

From left to right: Yulia Topko, Elena Kulish, Andrey Galavanov