Dubna - the great survivor

atoms are now around the corner. This year, as CERN celebrates its chine in the world. This machine is The Conference closed with the 40th anniversary (November, page still operational, and features in the award of N. Hamann Prize to A. 26), not far behind in the celebration Guinness Book of records as the Masoni of Cagliari, for his presenta­ stakes is the Joint Institute for Nu­ planet's largest electromagnet. tion on a high statistics study of iota clear Research, Dubna, near Mos­ While eclipsed by the new genera­ decay with the Obelix spectrometer. cow, established in 1956. While tion of strong focusing machines, the This Prize, funded by the Jozef CERN's goal was to provide a Synchrophasotron enjoyed a new Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, is in physics platform on which to rebuild lease of life as a heavy ion machine memory of Niklaus Hamann, PS Western European science after (up to silicon-28), as well as provid­ coordinator and LEAR physicist who World War II, JINR had a similar ing polarized deuteron beams. The died last year, aged 40. mission for the USSR and the social­ machine currently runs for some ist countries, including Eastern 1,500 hours per year, providing Europe. research material for more than 500 The fact that both organizations are scientists from 100 institutions. reaching their 40th anniversary The next energy step had very testifies to their success. While their different scenarios at CERN and at aims were very similar, their political JINR. In in the early 1970s, CERN contexts and scientific strategies decided to build the '300 GeV have led along very different routes. Project' (now the 450 GeV SPS Faced with the challenge of building Super Proton Synchrotron) on site, a major machine, CERN took the bull with the 28 GeV PS proton synchro­ by the horns and went for the new tron as its injector, rather than build­ technique of strong focusing. The bet ing a totally new infrastructure succeeded, and the dividends were somewhere else in Europe (there rich and numerous. Dubna chose a was no shortage of candidate sites). more conventional solution, designed In the prestige field of high energy under the guidance of the legendary physics, the USSR chose a different Vladimir I. Veksler, co-discoverer of route. Their next major machine was

The jewel in the research crown at the the principle of phase stability. For the 70 GeV proton synchrotron, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, several years the resulting 10 GeV which was pushed through rapidly, is the superconducting Nuclotron. synchrophasotron, commissioned in coming into operation in 1967 at the 1957, was the highest energy ma­ new Institute for High Energy Physics (Photo Yu. Tumanov)

CERN Courier, December 1994 7 Dubna - the great survivor

The parting of the ways. Dubna's Laboratory of High Energies Director Alexander Baldin explains the injection scheme which feeds the Synchrophasotron (top beam line) and the Nuclotron (below). (Photo G. Fraser)

users are expected to switch from the synchrophasotron to the Nuclotron. A useful Nuclotron bonus is surplus liquid helium, piped off to waiting trucks and supplied to the European market, adding a useful cash bonus to JINR funds. The initial goal of the Nuclotron was 20 GeV per nucleon. While this is still a dream, Baldin is optimistic about the physics that can be explored nevertheless. Nuclotron beams can be used for studying practically all the characteristics of highly excited nuclear matter. Another Dubna on-site feature, further extending the range of appli­ cations, is a well-equipped six-cabin facility for radiotherapy using synchrocyclotron beams. The good at Protvino, roughly as far south of ions to suit many tastes. localization of these beams is Moscow (100 kilometres) as Dubna Through this work, Dubna has valuable for treating eye and cranial is north. made major contributions to ion tumours, while a neutron beam is Until the arrival of CERN's Inter­ source technology, while on the used to treat larger radioresistant secting Storage Rings and Fermilab experimental side Dubna's Flerov tumours. in the early 1970s, the Protvino Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions has The IBR-2 reactor, commissioned in machine provided the world's highest made its mark in the study of 1982 and with a spectacular pulsing energies. The USSR had wrested superheavy elements (see the article system using strobed plates, has a back the high energy crown, but the by Laboratory Director Yuri wide range of spectrometers cover­ price had been high for Dubna. Much Oganessian which appeared in the ing both nuclear and condensed Dubna expertise and manpower November issue, page 16). The matter research. As well as JINR migrated, never to return. quality of Dubna's beams has at­ Member States and ancillary special Despite these two cruel twists of tracted a steady stream of informed programmes, Dubna's neutron fate, and the current financial difficul­ specialists. A US team from the programme includes bilateral agree­ ties after the breakup of the Soviet Lawrence Livermore Laboratory has ments with Saclay and the interna­ Union, Dubna has stuck coura­ been working at JINR since 1990. tional Institut Laue-Langevin in geously to its guns and remains a But the jewel in Dubna's heavy ion France and with the Rutherford valuable focus of research. Although crown is undoubtedly the supercon­ Appleton Laboratory in the UK. it has no glamorous new machines, it ducting Nuclotron (July/August 1993, Other neutron beams are provided covers a wider field of science than page 9), brainchild of Laboratory of by the older IBR-30 pulsed machine does CERN. High Energies Director Alexander using an electron linac as injector. The decision to go for research Baldin. This 250-metre ring, assem­ The plan is to replace this with an using heavy ion beams in 1971 and bled in the synchrophasotron's Intense Resonance Neutron Source - open up relativistic nuclear physics basement, provided its first beams IREN - using a 150 MeV electron has paid off. Heavy ion beams are last year. linac and a sub-critical uranium also provided by Dubna's veteran Experiments currently use internal booster. This project involves close U200 and U400 cyclotrons and the targets, achieving luminosities of 1033 collaboration with Novosibirsk's new U400M accelerator (December cm2 s"1, but the plan is to develop Budker Institute. Three klystrons are 1993, page 28). Together, these external beams too, with energies up being supplied by the Stanford Linear machines provide a wide range of to 6 GeV per nucleon. Progressively, Accelerator Center in the US.

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In 1989 Dubna celebrated the 80th birthday of former Dubna Director and renowned scientist Nikolai N. Bogolubov (left, who died in 1992). On Bogolubov's left is Dubna Vice-Director Alexei Sissakian, responsible for Dubna high energy physics and an enthusiastic supporter of CERN-Dubna collaboration.

Unlike CERN, truly international despite being sited near Geneva, JINR today is predominantly Rus­ sian, both in terms of funding (60 per cent) and sociology. With the breakup of the Union, many of the former Soviet republics still regard Dubna as a research focus. Support comes in kind as well as in cash. While Hungary has left the family and departed for CERN, a special Hungarian agreement contin­ ues to cover that country's involve­ ment in JINR neutron physics and heavy ion research. Poland, now also a CERN Member State, retains its ties to Dubna, as do the Czech and Slovak Republics. JINR is especially proud of its pating in experiments either planned The most conspicuous empty seat is theory group, with traditions dating or underway at Protvino, CERN, that of East Germany, whose mem­ back to its establishment under Saclay, PSI (Villigen), Julich and bership lapsed when the country Nikolai N. Bogolubov and Dimitri I. Prague. Flagship of Dubna participa­ ceased to exist as such. However Blokhintsev and which maintains the tion in the current CERN research special support from Germany, high traditions of Russian mathemat­ programme is the Delphi experiment earmarked for cooperation in specific ics and analysis. at CERN's LEP electron-positron topics and the use of Dubna facilities With its ready source of knowledge collider, where Dubna produced is the subject of a special annual and expertise, coupled with the more than 20,000 streamer tubes to agreement. attractions of a leafy site and the equip the detector's hadron calorim­ Although the shine may have worn proximity (but not the disadvantages) eter. off some of its research facilities, of Moscow, Dubna's vigorous pro­ In total, about 100 Dubna physicists JINR remains an important interface gramme of special schools attracts are involved in experiments at other between Western and Eastern good participation. Laboratories. About half are at science and is packed with know- More ambitious are Dubna's plans CERN, where JINR teams are how. Many Dubna specialists would for a fully-fledged international heavily involved in detector develop­ be happy to work on 'sub-contract' university on the site, with teaching in ment for the Atlas and CMS experi­ research projects. English. Already some 100 students ments planned for the LHC proton- Even when the Cold War was at its pass through Dubna each year for proton collider, as well as the major most frigid, Dubna cherished the lectures and practical work. NA48 CP-violation study. The pro­ bright flame of international collabo­ For the future, Dubna is pushing for gramme of experiments currently ration. In 1957, the possibility of an electron-positron ring to mass- underway includes the SMC spin collaboration between the infants produce charmed particles and tau study, where JINR polarized target CERN and JINR began to be ex­ leptons - a 'tau-charm factory'. This expertise has been useful. The large- plored, and a framework for future project involves a close collaboration scale Dubna involvement in current collaboration emerged which went on with the electron machine specialists CERN experiments sets the pace for to involve several major Soviet at Novosibirsk's Budker Institute. ongoing collaboration. centres. In the early 1970s, inspired by Fermilab Director Robert Wilson, Experiments at other Laboratories Support fruitful contacts were made with the US. Away from Dubna, JINR teams are JINR was established to cater for While new sources of funding have prominent on the world stage, partici­ the USSR and satellite countries. opened up to support former Soviet

10 CERN Courier, December 1994 Physics revelations by Christine Sutton

Science, JINR Director General Particle physics can probably be Vladimir Kadyshevsky prefers to take said to have begun during the 1930s, a more pragmatic approach, para­ Christine Sutton, Oxford physi­ a decade that saw Pauli's invention phrasing a Japanese proverb - 'do cist, well-known science writer of the neutrino and Fermi's theory of not give me fish, invite me to go and regular contributor to the beta-decay, as well as the discovery fishing'. 'Science is by nature interna­ CERN Courier, reports on the of the neutron, antimatter (the posi­ tional', he continues, adding that he International Conference on the tron) and the first heavy lepton (the was pleased to find a US Department History of Original Ideas and muon). In the relatively short time of Energy report quoting the Russian Basic Discoveries in Particle since then the subject has grown writer Anton Chekhov 'Science Physics, held at the Ettore enormously, with many more discov­ cannot be national, in the same way Majorana Centre, Erice, Sicily, eries, many new theoretical con­ that a multiplication table cannot be this summer. cepts, and many new experimental national. If a science becomes techniques. For the conference at national it ceases to be a science.' Erice to cover all of this in five days Erice must be not only one of the required the gathering of a large By Gordon Fraser most picturesque settings for a number of experts from a broad conference on history, but also one range of fields, so that the list of 49 of the most appropriate, founded so scheduled speakers resembled a the legends say more than 3000 "Who's Who" of particle physics. years ago. Particle physics, by Speakers such as Vicky Weisskopf contrast, is strikingly modern, but the really could go back to the first days Ettore Majorana Centre at Erice was of particle physics, telling the audi­ a fitting location for physicists to ence of how in 1933 he had learned gather and discuss their subject in physics from Rudolf Peierls in Cam­ the International Conference on the bridge (as it was impossible to learn History of Original Ideas and Basic from Dirac!) before becoming Discoveries in Particle Physics, from Wolfgang Pauli's assistant in 1934. 29 July to 3 August. Other speakers of a younger genera­ tion came to Erice straight from the frontiers of present-day research. Risto Orava, for example, brought the audience up to date on work on linear colliders, while Bias Cabrera discussed various detectors de­ signed to pick up signals from the dark matter particles that could account for up 99 per cent of the Universe. Talks on theoretical ideas ranged from the early days of quantum electrodynamics (Weisskopf) through asymptotic freedom and confinement in quantum chromodynamics (David Gross) to supergravity (Dmitrij Volkov

The setting of the Ettore Major ana Centre, and Dimitri Nanopoulos) and Erice, Sicily. Erice, founded so the legends say superstrings (John Schwarz), and more than 3000 years ago, was a fitting thus spanned the complete period location for physicists to gather and discuss from the early 1930s to the present their subject in the International Conference on the History of Original Ideas and Basic day. Reminiscences of discoveries Discoveries in Particle Physics this summer. stretched back nearly as far across

CERN Courier, December 1994 11