"The Journal Club"

started working at the Laboratory of Theoretical Physics of JINR

Focus on science, which has intensified during the pandemic and supported by the Year of Science and Technology in Russia, has led to the creation of many new solutions, events and forms of cooperation. Now the baton has been passed to the International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development (IYBSSD). A few months ago a new format for discussing scientific news appeared at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research - the Journal Club at the Laboratory of Theoretical Physics. Six meetings have been held in an online format and on 21 March the first face-to-face meeting took place.

The Journal Club has been established for informal discussion of recent publications in peer-reviewed journals and arXiv preprints. The Club is open to representatives of all physical disciplines and provides an opportunity for researchers to acquire or expand their interdisciplinary knowledge. The meetings are held in an online or offline format and contribute to the development and strengthening of cooperation between national institutes, academies, international collaborations and scientific groups.

Anyone can give an informal presentation on a preprint in arXiv or a journal article published in the last week. In addition, there is an opportunity to talk about previously published but no less important results or about your own work. The estimated presentation of one paper is 15-30 minutes. At the end of each meeting there will be a discussion of the latest physics news.

Chitta Ranjan Das, Senior researcher at BLTP JINR, India, has become the initiator of the creation of the Journal Club and today he is the Chairman of the Club. At the request of the editors, he commented on the start of the club.

"In the modern world scientific research plays a very important role, uniting several disciplines within one subject. Therefore, for successful interaction with colleagues, it is essential to understand the nuances of interdisciplinary communication. At the meetings of the BLTP Journal Club we discuss the recent scientific literature on various topics, based on short presentations given by participants. I think this format is very suitable for young scientists, without much distraction from intensive scientific work in the main field. Preparing a speech for a wide audience contributes to the development of the skills of concise and at the same time to critical presentation of new ideas, and the informal and friendly atmosphere of meetings allows to feel free to ask any questions.

I got the idea of creating a journal club from the Centro de Fisica Teorica de Particulas (CFTP), Instituto Superior Tecnico (IST), Tecnico (Lisbon, Portugal), where I was a postdoc before coming to Dubna. Such a seminar for discussion of recent articles is held in almost every scientific institute in Europe. There are journal clubs in Russia as well. It is also well known that N.N.Bogolyubov gathered his employees for informal communication over tea. I thought it would be nice to organise something similar at BLTP."

The co-chairman of the Journal Club, BLTP employee Alexander Bednyakov noted that although the number of participants at the meetings in absentia was not very large, a group of active participants had already formed. He believes that it is thanks to such people that the Journal club will exist and develop. In addition, Alexander said he expected the regular face-to-face meetings to attract more young employees and make the discussions even more lively. This is also evidenced by several reviews and a number of interesting proposals from members of the Journal Club.

BLTP Junior researcher Maxim Bezuglov delivering a speech at the first face-to-face meeting noted the following, "I would like to say that I consider the Journal Club to be a very useful event and I hope that in the future more and more people will take part in it. For me personally, as a young employee, the opportunity to communicate with my senior colleagues in an informal setting and thus join the team is extremely important. There is also an opportunity to expand my scientific horizons and learn about the areas of physics that are far from my main job. The process of preparing the report is also very useful. Personally, when I carefully studied the article for the report, I found links to useful research papers for me. As a result, this allowed me to contribute some new important material to my future Ph.D. thesis. As for suggestions, I can only say that I would like to see more young girls at the face-to-face meetings of the Club."

BLTP Senior researcher Pavel Maksimov, a regular participant in the meetings, also shared his impressions of the past meetings, "In the Journal Club I represent the Department of "Theory of Condensed Matter" with most of the participants from high energy physics. This makes it sometimes difficult to follow the presentations of colleagues but I believe that such an interdisciplinary exchange of ideas can turn out to be very fruitful in the end."

In the future, meetings of the Journal Club will be held on Mondays, from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM in the Blokhintsev Hall on the 4th floor of the Laboratory of Theoretical Physics. The next meeting will be held on 11 April. BLTP Junior researcher Natalya Kolomoets will talk about the equation of state for QCD in background magnetic fields.

Anyone wishing to give a presentation can send an application with an arXiv number and/or journal reference to journal_club@theor.jinr.ru no later than a day before the next meeting. For more details: https://indico.jinr.ru/category/569/.

The material was prepared by Alexander Bednyakov and Galina Myalkovskaya.