The year 2009 at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Re- experiments and complex tests of a number of topmost search has crowned the completion of the preceding systems, to operate the accelerator complex Nuclotron- seven-year scientiˇc programme of the Institute devel- M/NICA in the future. One of the main tasks of the opment and the summation of its results. A new seven- second run was to test the re-installed equipment in year plan for the development of JINR for 2010Ä2016 different modes of the accelerator operation. Experi- was adopted the same year, at a regular session of the ments on optimization of the particle dynamics in the Committee of Plenipotentiaries of the Governments of accelerator were conducted; the digital system of the the JINR Member States which, for the ˇrst time in the accelerating ˇeld frequency control was launched. history of JINR, was held in one of the JINR Member The NICA/MPD project has been substantially sup- States Å in the capital of Kazakhstan Astana. Its ba- ported by international experts Å the participants of sic concept involves concentration of resources for the the fourth round-table discussion on the NICA Physics upgrading of the JINR ®home¯ eet of accelerators and Programme, the European Committee on Future Accel- reactors that will provide the integration of the Institute erators (R-ECFA), and the Committee on JINRÄCERN basic facilities into the common system of the European Cooperation. scientiˇc infrastructure. The triad scienceÄinnovationÄ The development of a high-speed DubnaÄMoscow education is the standfast foundation of our scientiˇc communication channel is one of the most important re- policy. sults of the year in the development of the network and There will be no exaggeration to say that the re- IT system of the Institute infrastructure. The advanced sults achieved by the Institute community in 2009 are technology applied provides unlimited scalability of the impressive, even without making any allowance for the established channel. The grid-infrastructure of JINR global ˇnancial crisis and its impacts. These are just a was considerably upgraded: a large number of new few examples to conˇrm it. computational nodes and disk servers were purchased In January 2009, the physical start-up of the new and launched into operation for the data storage. At JINR basic facility IREN-I (a source of resonance neu- present, the JINR grid-site is in the ˇrst top-ten list of trons) was carried out. Due to the improvement of the world grid-infrastructure. characteristics of some parts of the facility, consider- The upgrading work of the neutron pulsed reactor able progress was achieved in its project parameters at IBR-2M was conducted according to the schedule. The the end of the year. working project of the moderators' complex was fully In collaboration with the Oak-Ridge National Lab- accomplished; the unique design of the moderators will oratory (USA), JINR scientists launched a unique ex- allow a 25-fold increase in the cold neutrons ux; a periment on the synthesis and study of the properties of track of cooling helium was constructed; a full-scale element 117 in the 249Bk + 48Ca reaction. The exper- model of the track was developed for the delivery of iment continued all the year through; the results were the moderating material into the moderator chamber. processed and prepared for the publication. Theorists of the Institute have formulated the The cryogenics of the Nuclotron accelerator com- method of the analytical solution of the Baxter equa- plex was considerably upgraded; today the working rate tion for the twist operators 2 and 3 in the planar N =4 of the upgraded cryogenic module, that is in fact a mod- YangÄMills supersymmetry theory. The analytical solu- ern helium production plant, is sufˇcient to provide the tion obtained with this method proves the correctness of future NICA collider operation. Two scheduled runs of the formula postulated before for the three-loop anom- the Nuclotron were successfully conducted for physics alous dimension of the twist operators 2. In this case, 5 the transcendent part of the corresponding three-loop and had promising prospects. They were different in anomalous dimension in QCD was determined from the character, though both of them were held in Novem- studies of the supersymmetric gauge theory in four di- ber and not in Dubna but in other places. Firstly, it mensions exclusively on the basis of the theory integra- was the First All-Russian School for physics teachers at bility. CERN organized by JINR. Those JINR staff members Signiˇcant results in high-energy physics were ob- who take part in CERN projects gave lectures at the tained in the experiments conducted in leading accel- School, while the attendants of the event were physics erator centres where JINR scientists were involved in teachers from different regions of Russia. Secondly, the research. A series of the NA48, NA48/1 and in the frames of a visiting session of the JINR Com- NA48/2 high-precision experiments was completed at mittee of Plenipotentiaries, a quadruple agreement was SPS (CERN) which studied kaon decays at the limit signed in Astana (Kazakhstan) on the joint training of of the achievable intensity of events. The NA48 ex- Bachelors and Masters in nuclear physics between the periment was inside the top-ˇve brightest experiments Joint Institute for Nuclear Research and the Gumilev at CERN conducted during the period of more than Eurasian National University. ˇve decades of the centre history. JINR staff members In 2009, students from Poland, the Czech Republic, made a considerable contribution into this research at Romania, Serbia, the Republic of South Africa and, for all stages, including the preparation of experiments, the the ˇrst time, from the Arab Republic of Egypt took experiments themselves, data analysis and processing part in the international student practice in JINR re- of ˇnal results. search trends. Unanimously, this practice course was In November 2009, the launching of the LHC at considered successful and fruitful, as more and more CERN was started again. A considerable contribution JINR Member States become interested in it. to the repair of the damaged superconducting magnets The year 2009 was marked by the centenary of of the LHC and improvement of the system of valves the birth of Academician Nikolai Nikolaevich Bogoli- for the emergency evacuation of liquid helium in con- ubov Å an outstanding scientist, mathematician, physi- tingency was made by a team of high-skilled engineers cist, specialist in mechanics. The International Bogoli- and technicians from JINR. With the LHC launched, ubov Conference ®Problems of Theoretical and Math- the main experimental facilities Å ATLAS, CMS and ematical Physics¯ held in Moscow and Dubna, and ALICE, started to operate. JINR physicists took part later in Kiev (Ukraine) was one of the central events in the data accumulation to check the operation of all of the jubilee year. In the year of the centenary systems of these most sophisticated machines. of the birth of the outstanding scientist Metropoli- Among the important achievements of 2009 in the tan Juvenal of Krutitsy and Kolomna visited Dubna, frames of the CDF collaboration are the observation of to consecrate the church of Holy Mother Praise in the Ωb baryon and the ˇrst observation of electroweak Ratmino which was given back to Christians in the production of a single top-quark. late 1980s due to the support and help rendered by The project carried out by JINR specialists in col- N. N. Bogoliubov. laboration with their Macedonian colleagues to develop Centenary jubilees of the birth of the ˇrst JINR and compile a geochemical Atlas of an ecologically Vice-Directors Academicians Marian Danysz (Poland) troubled region of Macedonia was awarded the State and VÃaclav Votruba (Czechoslovakia) were also cele- Prize of the Government of the Republic of Macedonia brated in 2009. These scientists took an active part for 2009. in the establishment of JINR as a large international The research by JINR radiobiologists was interna- scientiˇc research centre. tionally acknowledged. It concerned studies of mecha- The activities of the Institute in widening interna- nisms of the mutagenic process in microorganisms in- tional cooperation were aimed at further development of duced by radiation with various physical characteristics. partnership programmes with Member States and other On the basis of experimental results, for the ˇrst time countries. In 2009, these efforts brought convincing a model was worked out that described in the terms of results: an Agreement was concluded on the govern- genetic networks the mutagenic process in bacteria at mental level on cooperation with the Arab Republic of the action of the ultraviolet radiation. The results of Egypt; a Protocol was signed with the Republic of Hun- the studies were published in the Journal of Theoretical gary on the promotion of joint fundamental and applied Biology. research at JINR; a Protocol was signed on the promo- It should be noted that in early 2009 the JINR Lab- tion of joint activities in the frames of the Agreement on oratory of Radiation Biology was granted the status of cooperation between the Republic of Serbia and JINR; an institution under the scientiˇc and methodical guid- the Agreement between JINR and the Federal Ministry ance of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Since then of Education and Scientiˇc Research of Germany was the Department of Biological Sciences of RAS has been prolonged up to the end of 2011. supervising biological studies at JINR. On the whole, it is possible to say that a new phase Two milestones of the year were connected with of JINR cooperation with scientiˇc centres of its Mem- the development of the educational programme of JINR ber States started, where along with fundamental studies 6 and the educational programme innovation development Another important event of 2009 concerns the de- plays a considerable role.