The 10th International Conference “CPOD 2018: Critical Point and Onset of Deconfinement”, dedicated to the study of the properties of quark-gluon matter at extreme temperatures and energy densities has been held in Kerkyra (Corfu, Greece). These conditions can be achieved in a laboratory on the Earth only by collisions of (ultra-) relativistic heavy nuclei. As a result of the collisions of nuclei, cold matter can be heated to ultrahigh temperatures and move to the state in which the universe was in the first millionth of a second after the Big Bang. Depending on the collision energy of the nuclei, very high densities of baryon matter can also be achieved, which are typical for processes such as the fusion of neutron stars and black holes, and which are manifested in recently discovered gravitational waves.
The CPOD conference is one of the most prestigious conferences in the field of physics of ultra-relativistic collisions of heavy nuclei, which has been held regularly since 2006. Every year it gathers about 100 participants, among them - the world's largest scientists working in this field, heads of international collaborations and mega-science projects. Participants of the conference presented new results from experiments at the existing accelerator complexes – Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider, RHIC (STAR, PHENIX), superproton synchrotron SPS (NA61/SHINE) and the heavy-ion accelerator SIS18 (HADES). Reports were also presented on the first physical results from the first BM@N experiment at the Nuclotron-NICA accelerator complex, on the preparation of future experiments on the construction of the NICA heavy ion Collider (MPD), the complex for the study of heavy ions and antiproton FAIR (CBM) and plans to create new relativistic ion accelerators in Japan and China.
Russia presented 7 reports at the conference, three of which were made by the MEPhI staff that is in the group for the study of collisions of relativistic heavy ions. Ilya Selyuzhenkov, associate professor of the Department №67 of MEPhI, presented new results of collective flow measurement in the NA61/SHINE experiment for lead-lead collisions at 30 GeV energy. These are the first physical results of data processing in the framework of a new experimental program of energy scanning on NA61/SHINE for Pb+Pb collisions, proposed earlier by the MEPhI group and presented for protection at CERN by Ilya Selyuzhenkov. Also within the framework of this program data for the energies of 13, 30 and 150 AGeV/s were collected in 2016-2017.
Together with the Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research (GSI, Darmstadt) and the Institute for Nuclear Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Troitsk), the MEPhI group analyzed the efficiency of collective anisotropic flux measurements in the future MPD (NICA) experiment. The results were presented by the associate professor of the Department №67 of MEPhI Arkady Taranenko and researcher Sergey Morozov.
The MEPhI group plans to continue measurements of azimuthal flows for different collision energies, analyzing the available data and planned for the set from the experiments NA49, NA61/SHINE, CBM, MPD, and BM@N. This scan will complement the studies, conducting by the STAR collaboration within the Beam Energy Scan program on the RHIC Collider (USA).
The group from MEPhI for the study of heavy-ion collisions invites undergraduate and postgraduate students interested in physics at the world level to join them so that jointly take an active part in major international experiments in Russia and abroad. For more information, please contact with team leaders Arkady Taranenko (arkadij71@gmail.com) and Ilya Selyuzhenkov (ilya.selyuzhenkov@gmail.com) by e-mail.
