The Great Survivor
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
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. 8 CERN Courier, December 1994 The meeting of two world class standards: Lab VIEW® and VICbus VIC 8250, VIC 8251, VIC 8252 VCC2117, CBD 8210 FVSBI 9210 + VFI9214 VIC Interface Initialization, Page VCC Initialization, CDREG, CSSA, Standard FASTBUS routines in Descriptor Generation, VDREG, VME CSS A Repeat, Generate Z, Generate C, LabVIEW Style (FBOPEN, FRC, Read, VME Write, Block Transfers, Clear Inhibit, Auto Scan, Q Repeat, FRDB,...) VME Test, File to VME, VME to File, LAM Sync, Wait LAM,... VME Dump, File Dump,... VME CAMAC FASTBUS • Simple, efficient tests for CAMAC, FASTBUS Low Cost Starter Kits: and VME boards • MAC - VME • Can be connected at any time to the DAQ system • MAC - CAMAC • High-speed, multimaster operation. • MAC - FASTBUS LabVIEW® is a trademark of National Instruments Corporation At CES, tomorrow's systems are available now For any additional information about this product or our complete VIC, VME, CAMAC and FASTBUS line, do not hesitate to contact us. • CES Geneva, Switzerland Tel: +41-22 792 57 45 Fax: +41-22 792 57 48 • -CESJD Germany " " Tel: +49-60 55 4023 " Fax: +49-60 55 82 210 CES Creative Electronic Systems SA, 70 Route du Pont-Butin, P.O. Box 107 CH4213 PETIT-LANC¥1 SWITZERLAND CREATIVE ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS Dubna - the great survivor 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.