The 14th collaboration meeting of the MPD experiment has been held at the JINR Laboratory of High Energy Physics in Dubna. The participants discussed topical issues of the implementation of the Multi-Purpose Detector project – a multi–purpose detector designed to conduct experiments in the field of relativistic nuclear physics at the NICA accelerator complex. When the detector is built, it will make it possible to study collisions of beams of heavy element nuclei (gold), heavy element nuclei with protons and proton-proton collisions. The meeting was actively attended by MEPhI staff and graduate students.
"The MPD installation is designed to study collisions of heavy nuclei, as well as particles generated by such collisions," Viktor Ryabov, head of the MPD collaboration, chief Researcher of the Elementary Particle Identification Sector in the LHEP JINR, told the MEPhI press service. “The purpose of the experiment is to understand what the matter that surrounds us is under conditions similar to those that are realized in compact neutron stars of the modern Universe and when they merge. Such fundamental research will allow us to better understand the nature of the matter that surrounds us, where our Universe came from and how it evolved."
Arkady Taranenko, Associate Professor of the MEPhI Department No. 11 "Experimental Methods of Nuclear Physics", is currently elected deputy head of the MPD collaboration. According to Arkady Taranenko, the MEPhI group for the study of heavy nuclear collisions was established in 2015. They chose to study of collective azimuthal fluxes of particles born in a collision of relativistic heavy ions and methods of their measurement. "The MEPhI Group is the only group in Russia that develops measurement techniques, we can test them on real data and prepare a program for their research," the scientist stressed (a full interview with Arkady Taranenko will be published soon). At the collaboration meeting, Arkady Taranenko made a report on the interim work results of the MEPhI group.
Petr Parfenov, Research Engineer at the MEPhI Department No. 11, is currently the coordinator of the MPD Physical Working group on Global observables. "Historically, we went up in energy, built the Large Hadron Collider and studied matter at extremely high temperatures," explains Petr Parfenov. “However, now physical interest lies in studying the so-called average temperatures and very high baryon densities. Matter under these conditions has not been fully studied. And this is a very important point, since such matter exists in the center of neutron stars and during their mergers. This is exactly the generator of the heaviest elements in the periodic table, and until recently it was a mystery where we got so many heavy elements. The experiment at the NICA collider will help us better understand how such matter actually works."
More than 500 scientists from 38 scientific centers of Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Mongolia, Russia, Slovakia, China and Mexico are members of the MPD collaboration. The completion of construction and launch of the MPD are scheduled for 2025. "One of our main goals remains to conduct the first commissioning session on the MPD installation in 2025," Viktor Ryabov said at a meeting of the collaboration. "Simultaneously with the construction of the experimental facility, the MPD collaboration participants will continue to work on the experimental program and implement the necessary tools and methods for data analysis."
