Projects of Nuclotron modernization and Nuclotron-based ion collider facility (NICA) at JINR

One of the basic facilities at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna is the 6 A GeV Nuclotron, which has replaced the old weak focusing 10-GeV proton accelerator Synchrophasotron. The first relativistic nuclear beams with the energy of 4.2 A GeV were obtained at the Synchrophasotron in 1971. Since that time, relativistic nuclear physics has been one of the main directions of the JINR research program. In the coming years, the new JINR flagship program assumes the experimental study of hot and dense strongly interacting QCD matter at the new JINR facility. This goal is proposed to be reached by (i) development of the existing Nuclotron accelerator facility as a basis for generation of intense beams over atomic mass range from protons to uranium and light polarized ions, (ii) design and construction of the Nuclotron-based heavy Ion Collider fAcility (NICA) with the maximum nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass collision energy of √s _NN = 9 GeV and averaged luminosity 10²⁷ cm⁻² s⁻¹, and (iii) design and construction of the Multipurpose Particle Detector (MPD) at intersecting beams. Realization of the project will lead to unique conditions for research activity of the world community. The NICA energy region is of major interest because the highest nuclear (baryonic) density under laboratory conditions can be reached there. Generation of intense polarized light nuclear beams aimed at investigation of polarization phenomena at the Nuclotron is foreseen. The text was submitted by the author in English.     

Feasibility study of heavy ion physics program at NICA

There are strong experimental and theoretical evidences that in collisions of heavy ions at relativistic energies nuclear matter undergoes a phase transition to the deconfined state—Quark Gluon Plasma. The caused energy region of such transition was not found at high energy at SPS and RHIC and search for this energy is shifted to lower energies, which will be covered by the future NICA (Dubna), FAIR (Darmstadt) facilities and BES II at RHIC. Fixed target and collider experiments at the NICA facility will work at the energy range from a few AGeV up to \(\sqrt {\;{S_{NN}}} \; = \;11\;GeV\) GeV and will study the most interesting area on the nuclear matter phase diagram. The most remarkable results were observed in the study of collective phenomena occurring in the early stage of nuclear collisions. Investigation of the collective flow will provide information on Equation of State (EoS) for nuclear matter. Study of the Event-by-Event fluctuations and correlations can give us signals of critical behavior of the system. Femtoscopy analysis provides the space-time history of the collisions. Also, it was found that baryon stopping power revealing itself as a “wiggle” in excitation function of curvature of the (net)proton rapidity spectrum relates to the order of the phase transition. The available observations of an enhancement of dilepton rates at low invariant masses may serve as a signal of the chiral symmetry restoration in hot and dense matter. Due to this fact, measurements of the dilepton spectra are considered to be an important part of the NICA physics program. The study of strange particles and hypernuclei production gives additional information on the EoS and “strange” axis of the QCD phase diagram. In this paper a feasibility of the considered investigations is shown by the detailed Monte Carlo simulations applied to the planned experiments (BM@N, MPD) at NICA.     

New Crystal Devices for Use at the U-70 Accelerator

JETP Letters - In view of the successful experience in the generation of pion and kaon secondary beams using a focusing crystal, it has been proposed to build at the U-70 accelerator a new-type...     

Luminosity Measurement and Control at NICA

Physics of Particles and Nuclei Letters - A detector for measuring the luminosity at beam crossing points at the NICA collider is proposed. This small detector is based on scintillation counters...     

Exploring hybrid-star matter at NICA and FAIR

We discuss constraints for the equation of state of hybrid-star matter which can be obtained from next-generation heavy-ion collisions at FAIR and NICA. Particular emphasis is on the planned NICA facility at JINR (Dubna) which will provide fixed target and collider experiments just in the relevant energy ranges.     

Experiments on the study of the deuteron-proton interactions at intermediate energies at Internal Target at Nuclotron

The experimental program on the study of deuteron-proton interaction at Internal Target at Nuclotron is discussed. Recent results obtained for dp-elastic scattering and dp-breakup reactions at intermediate energies are presented. The status of the DSS setup upgrade is reported.     

Diffractive vector meson production at HERA: From soft to hard QCD

Experimental results from HERA on diffractive vector meson production and their theoretical interpretation within microscopic QCD are reviewed with an emphasis on the BFKL color dipole and k _T -factorization approaches. The text was submitted by the authors in English.     

Inclusive photoproduction of φ-mesons at photon energies of 25–70 GeV

Results are presented on inclusive φ photoproduction for incident energies between 25 and 70 GeV. Distributions in Feynman x, p_T and decay angles are presented and interpreted in terms of quark fusion models. We demonstrate a similarity with the corresponding pion-induced reaction and obtain information on the hadronic nature of the photon.     

Inclusive photon and π0 production inK + p interactions at 70 GeV/c

Inclusive and semi-inclusive cross sections and distributions of γ's and π⁰'s inK ⁺ p interactions at 70 GeV/c are presented. The results are compared to other experiments and to the Lund model for low-p _T hadron collisions.     

Electromagnetic and strange probes of dense nuclear matter at NICA/MPD: a feasibility study

The main task of the NICA/MPD physics program is a study of the properties of nuclear matter under extreme conditions achieved in collisions of heavy ions. These properties can reveal themselves through different probes, the most promising among those being the lepton-antilepton pairs and strange hadrons. In this paper the MPD performance for measuring the electron-positron pairs and strange particles (Λ, Ξ^– and Ω^– hyperons and their antiparticles \(\overline \Lambda \), \({\overline \Xi ^ + }\) and \({\overline \Omega ^ + }\) as well as hypernuclei ₃ ^Λ Λ) in central Au + Au collisions at NICA energies is presented.     

Experimental study of hard photon radiation processes at HERA

We present an experimental study of theepe+p andepe+X processes using data recorded by the H1 detector in 1993 at the electron-proton collider HERA. These processes are employed to measure the luminosity with an accuracy of 4.5 %. A subsample of theepe+X events in which the hard photon is detected at angles 0.45 mrad with respect to the incident electron direction is used to verify experimentally the size of radiative corrections to theepeX inclusive cross section and to investigate the structure of the proton in theQ ² domain down to 2 GeV², lower than previously attained at HERA.Supported by the Bundesministerium für Forschung und Technologie, FRG under contract numbers 6AC17P, 6AC47P, 6DO57I, 6HH17P, 6HH27I, 6HD17I, 6HD27I, 6KI17P, 6MP17I, and 6WT87P     

Direct soft photon production inK + p andπ + p interactions at 250 GeV/c

Inclusive production of direct soft photons is studied inK ⁺ p andK ⁺ π interactions at 250 GeV/c. Total cross sections, Feynman-x and transverse momentum distributions of direct γ's are presented. The measured cross sections are several times larger than expected from QED inner bremsstrahlung, indicating the presence of an anomalous soft photon source. The model of Lichard and Van Hove, based on the “cold quark-gluon plasma” picture, agrees with the data.     

Systematic study of photon production at forward rapidity in STAR

We present the measurement of multiplicity and pseudorapidity distributions of photons production at forward rapidity (−2.3 ≤ η ≤ −3.8) for Cu + Cu collisions at $ \sqrt {S_{NN} } $ \sqrt {S_{NN} } = 62.4 and 200 GeV. Photons are measured using the Photon Multiplicity Detector (PMD) in STAR experiment at RHIC. The distributions of (η−η _beam), where η _beam is beam rapidity is presented. Pseudorapidity distributions of photons at forward rapidities, when ob-served in the frame of one of the colliding particles show the signature of energy independent scaling at forward rapidities known as Limiting Fragmentation. Measurement of inclusive photons reflect the distribution for π ⁰ as most of the photons come from π ⁰ decay. Gluon saturation at initial conditions of the collisions is one of the possible explanations for this scaling. Study of system-size and incident energy dependence of this phenomenon help us understand the mechanisms better. The system-size and energy dependence of the widths of scaling in pseudorapidity and comparison with model predictions are presented.