Nuclotron-based Ion Collider facility (NICA) logo / JINR, Dubna - logo.
Oct. 7, 2013
In Dubna, at the Institute of Nuclear Research, create a new collider. Dubbed the project is simple and beautiful - NICA. It is an abbreviation of Nuclotron-based Ion Collider facility. At the same time, the goddess of victory. The plant NICA scientists to model the first moments of creation of the universe billions of years ago. In fact, the birth of our world.
"Younger brother" of the Large Hadron Collider will appear in Dubna near Moscow. At the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, has begun construction of domestic nuclear particle accelerator.
Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. Founded in 1956 by the Institute of Nuclear Problems of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union. Located in the city of Dubna. Here, for the first time in the world created by synchrotron, proton accelerator where scientists have reached a record high at the time of energy. For his great contribution to the Institute of modern physics 105- th element of the periodic table given the name "Dubna", and the 114 th - "Flerov", in honor of Academician Georgi Flerov.
Today, in the laboratories of the Institute 7. Main research areas - nuclear physics, elementary particle physics and condensed matter.
Nuclotron-based Ion Collider facility - NICA description
NICA - no less ambitious, but less expensive installation than the CERN. 500 meters of the perimeter of the ring. As a Swiss instrument , NICA will be created in international cooperation.
In Dubna do not have to dig and dig tunnels of the mine - a project developed on the basis of already existing nuclotron. In fact - it is a cascade of three accelerators.
One of them is already in place - a superconducting ion synchrotron nuclotron. The second stage - the booster, the particles will provide the necessary intensity. Previously, it housed a magnet synchrotron. Plus two collider ring, in which the protons will collide.
Russian collider will be the best setting for experiments on heavy-ion physics. Scientists are hoping that after the launch of the project NICA center of such research will register in the suburbs.
"There are high-energy physics. It is no less interesting, it is very popular today among physicists in this area expected to be very bright interesting discovery, namely the phase transitions of nuclear matter. In order to study them, you need to create maximum density of baryonic matter, the one that exists in neutron stars. In order to study these processes is to maximize the baryon density does not need maximum energy as the LHC or at the Brookhaven machine. Theorists have calculated that it is very close to that which is achievable today on our nuclotron", - says the director of the Laboratory of High Energies, JINR Vladimir Kekelidze.
The main difference from the Russian Collider in Switzerland is that the CERN main forces left in search of the elusive Higgs boson - the particle that gives mass to all other particles.
As for Russia, its installation will explore another area of the creation of the universe billions of years ago, the formation of quarks and gluons, the particles of baryonic matter. That is, our world.
Image above: In the Nuclotron tunnel, A Butenko, left, and H Khodzhibagiyan discussing details of the facility construction. Image credit: JINR.
"Theorists have formulated the conditions under which it was possible to form the universe for the way in which it has gone. The conditions are very simple - a certain temperature (or energy) of the particles and the density of nuclear matter. When theorists have formulated these conditions , it became clear what the experiment can be put in the laboratory here on Earth to try to simulate the conditions that were in the early stages of the Universe", - says deputy chief engineer of the JINR, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Gregory Trubnikov.
It will allow scientists to NICA closer to the conditions of a "Big Bang ", from which, according to physicists, and did our universe.
"It needs a well-defined energy to disperse the heavy nuclei . We chose gold for gold, because it is technically easier to do. On the basis of nuclotron and creates a collider. The first booster will nuclotron, LINAC, then beams will be displayed, and will be organized by the meeting of two beams in two places. One thing we are going to study the heavy ion program , to try to achieve the maximum density of baryonic matter, and watch what happens. And another will study the spin physics. Also no less interesting project ", - says Vladimir Kekelidze.
The UNK dipole magnet in the cryostat
With NICA scientists hope to uncover the structure of the universe and the mystery of its fundamental forces: dark matter, dark energy, black holes, "wormholes" and extra-dimensions.
"When you know how to form a substance formed as a matter of how it was formed, you can predict what will happen with this matter, as it will continue to evolve as it will break down and die. Generally, it is the fundamental issues that will Otgadki to understanding the evolution of our universe", - says Gregory Trubnikov.
Today, the scientific program NICA is filled with new ideas. The setup is a high energy density of matter and the enormous diversity of varieties of particles studied, offer opportunities for a wide range of applications.
This carbon therapy, testing of electronics for space programs, the transmutation of radioactive waste, new approaches to energy generation.
But the important thing is that the LHC will work in our country, not abroad. And the young Russian scientists will have a good and interesting work at home.
Launch of the first phase of the project is planned to NICA two years. And already in 2017-th nuclear scientists from Dubna wait for the start of the whole complex.
ROSCOSMOS Press Release: http://www.federalspace.ru/19876/
For more information, read "Design and Construction of Nuclotron-based Ion Collider fAcility (NICA) PDF: http://nica.jinr.ru/files/NICA_CDR.pdf
Images, Video, Text, Credits: Roscosmos TV studio / ROSCOSMOS / NICA / JINR / Translation: Orbiter.ch Aerospace.
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