Projects of the XXI century

ARIADNA collaboration gains momentum

Plans for the development of cooperation and infrastructure

(Ending. Beginning at No. 26)

The first applied research on high-energy beams of the NICA complex also outlined plans for the future. A number of laboratory seminars were held, meetings with partner organizations are held regularly, at which current work and immediate prospects are discussed. The ARIADNA collaboration currently consists of 154 participants from 18 scientific centres of the JINR Member States; three more institutes are going to join it. It is expected that a wide range of research will be carried out on the subject of ARIADNA work: in the field of radiation safety in space, radiation effects in microelectronics, radiation biophysics, general radiobiology and related problems of radiation therapy, radiation materials science, the investigation of materials under extreme conditions and work on ADS systems.

General conclusions

Deputy Head of the Department of Scientific and Methodological Research and Innovations of VBLHEP Oleg Belov commented on these plans for our newspaper in more detail.

What conclusions were made in terms of organization of research at the NICA complex? What is proposed to improve user comfort?

- The first experiments showed the urgent need to prepare places for the deployment of equipment for the users that come to the session. It is also necessary to equip the section of beam extraction from the BM@N facility with a number of dosimetric subsystems. For these purposes, relevant research and development work will be carried out in order to further locate here a complex of diagnostic and dosimetric equipment and a compact system for automated sample change.

The main risks in the implementation of the project are related to the limited amount of beam time for carrying out research at the NICA complex and other JINR accelerators. The risks are expected to be overcome through the expansion of the number of sites for irradiation that allow to work in parallel with other physical facilities of the NICA complex.

What is planned to be done in the near future?

- It seems extremely important to obtain an operating mode at the NICA complex, in which there is a relatively fast change in the type of ion and energy. Such a "multi-ion" beam opens up fundamentally new possibilities in the field of studying the effects of cosmic radiation. It will allow scientists to implement a more realistic approach to modeling galactic cosmic ray fluxes to test detectors and materials in the space industry, as well as to study the biological effects of cosmic radiation.

In general, it is planned to use all the energy ranges of accelerated particles from several MeV to several GeV per nucleon that will be available at the SIMBO, ISKRA, SINAE irradiation stations under construction and the already equipped SOCHI station in the upcoming investigations.

Specific plans

The construction of the SOChI, ISCRA, SIMBO stations and the corresponding channels for applied research is carried out with the Head of the chief engineer of the NICA accelerator complex Evgeny Syresin, with the decisive participation in this work of young specialists Georgy Filatov and Alexey Slivin. At one of the laboratory seminars, it was told about the structure of projects and plans for their development.

Channels for applied research are developed on the basis of the linear heavy ion accelerator LUTI and the superconducting synchrotron Nuclotron. There are two areas for applied research in building No.1 of the Laboratory of High Energy Physics. The first of them is the SOChI station (Station Of Chip Irradiation). The task of the station is to provide a particle flux density on the target of 10³-10⁵ particles/cm²/s. The facility operates in pulsed mode. The second area is the area of the measuring pavilion. Two stations will be positioned there: SIMBO (Station for Investigation of Medical and Biological Objects) and ISCRA (Irradiation Station of Components of Radioelectronic Apparatus).

At the moment, the project of new elements of the magnetic system of the SIMBO and ISCRA channels has been completed. The magnetic elements will ensure both the transport of the beam and its development on the target.

"Octupole magnets are the highlight of the ISCRA channel. At the ISCRA station, it is necessary to ensure the irradiation of 20 x 20 mm chips with a uniformity of 10 percent. The octupole transforms the phase portrait of the beam and develops a plateau at its tip. It is this plateau that provides the required uniformity. In addition, we will use scanning magnets that will allow us to irradiate large areas of targets: 200x200 mm at the ISCRA station and 100x100 mm at the SIMBO station," Georgy Filatov said.

At the SIMBA station, a collimator will be used to develop a sharp field boundary when irradiating biological objects. Collimator inserts will allow changing the beam diameter. Detectors will also be used to measure the beam profile. The SIMBO station will be equipped with a climatic chamber, a target positioner, a detector positioning system and ionization chambers. The ISCRA station also includes a large number of equipment and detectors: a degrader, a positioning system, a system for setting temperatures from negative to positive, a special device for placing a chip and checking it for failures during irradiation, an ionization chamber and silicon detectors.

During the commissioning session in October 2022, the project team tested the SOChI application station on argon ions, the microchip underwent the first irradiation, radiochromic films were irradiated to find out what beam and target profile would be at the output. During the tests, it was possible to "fluff" the beam in order to obtain the necessary uniformity, as well as the fluences required for testing. This result was observed by irradiating the microcircuit.

The programme of the 2023 session at the SOChI facility included testing the microcircuit, the project team obtained the same fluences, but this time the tests were carried out on xenon beams. In addition to the boards, a special track detector and radiochromic films were irradiated. Georgy Filatov noted that these tests proved to be effective for equipment testing. In the future, scientists will test detectors. In March of this year, the installation of equipment and the ISCRA station was completed at the off-site location of the station and the equipment of the SIMBO station was also purchased. The launch of SIMBO and ISCRA channels and stations is scheduled for autumn 2024.

First results and new partners

In June, Vladikavkaz hosted a workshop "Applied research at the NICA complex: prospects for cooperation between North Ossetia-Alania and JINR", at which the units of the ARIADNA scientific programme and the immediate prospects for joint work were discussed.

The meeting opened with a solemn ceremony of signing a Memorandum of Understanding on the participation of the North Ossetian State University after K.L.Khetagurov (NOSU) in the ARIADNA collaboration on applied research at the NICA complex. The signing of the Memorandum became the starting point for the inclusion of teaching and student teams of this university in applied work using the megascience class infrastructure. After signing the memorandum, JINR Director Grigory Trubnikov and NOSU Rector Alan Ogoev delivered welcoming speeches to the meeting participants and exchanged views on the prospects for further cooperation between the two organizations in a number of areas. On behalf of the organizers of the event, the participants were greeted by the Head of the ARIADNA-LS Collaboration, Deputy Head of the VBLHEP Department of Scientific and Methodological Research and Innovation Oleg Belov and Director of the JINR Information Centre in the South of Russia Nelli Pukhaeva.

On the first day of the meeting, VBLHEP representatives briefed the audience on general information about the NICA project and the possibilities for implementing experiments on the extracted beams of the accelerator complex. Also, a round table was held with representatives of universities and research and production enterprises of North Ossetia-Alania. Teachers, students and graduate students of NOSU and NCMMI (STU), Heads of LLC VTC BASPIK Ltd and RIE JSC that provided information on research and scientific - production infrastructure of their organizations participated in it. The participants of the meeting learnt about the possibilities of the NOSU Shared Use Centre.

The work of the section of scientific reports started with a report by Andrey Shtemberg (IMBP RAS) on the neurobiological effects of the combined action of radiation and gravitational factors of interplanetary flight, in which he noted the relevance of organizing experiments at the NICA complex. Modern techniques for the analysis of radiation-induced double-strand breaks in DNA were highlighted in his report by Andrey Osipov (FLNR) that noted the significance of experiments at the NICA complex for improving dosimetric approaches in experiments using accelerated ions. The prospects for using the NICA complex in the research of biologically active nanomaterials for radiation biology problems were presented in the report by Nelli Popova (ITEB RAS), where the main units of the ITEB RAS research programme as part of the ARIADNA collaboration were also presented. The physical and dosimetric support of a radiobiological experiment using beams of various qualities was discussed in the report of Vyacheslav Saburov (MRRC named after A.F.Tsyb, a branch of the National Research Center for Radiology of the Ministry of Health of Russia) that spoke about the multifaceted experience of working with sources of ionizing radiation within the framework of practical tasks of radiation medicine. Yury Severyukhin (LRB) presented a report on neuroradiobiological research using beams of accelerated heavy ions of the NICA complex, once again emphasizing the uniqueness of beams of accelerated ions of the NICA complex for implementing experimental work in this area using laboratory animals.

The section of scientific reports on the issues of radiation materials science and radiation modification of materials was chaired by Michaela Paraipan and Sergey Tyutyunnikov. Pavel Degtyarenko (JIHT RAS) presented a report on changes in the current-carrying capacity of high-temperature superconductors irradiated with ions of various energies. Igor Rudnev (NRNU MEPhI) reported on applied research at the NICA complex in the field of radiation modification of high-temperature superconducting composites, presenting the main tasks of the NRNU MEPhI scientific group within the framework of the ARIADNA collaboration in the near future. The possibilities of studying the radiation resistance of materials at the IBR-2 reactor were highlighted in the report of Maxim Bulavin (FLNP) that noted the relevance of carrying out work with neutron sources in addition to the ARIADNA research programme.

The section of reports on the use of beams of the NICA complex for research in the field of ADS systems was chaired by Igor Rudnev and Maxim Bulavin. The section was opened by a review report by Sergey Tyutyunnikov (VBLHEP) on the current state and prospects for the development of ADS systems, in which the results of previous years' work obtained using Nuclotron beams were presented. In a report on the prospects for using ion beams of the NICA complex for the development of modern ADSR systems, Mihaela Paraipan (VBLHEP) presented a wide range of calculation results for determining the optimal configuration of the system and choosing the types of ion beams for experimental research in this area. David Lazarov (NOSU) presented a report on the investigation of silicon photomultipliers. Ivan Gordeev (LRB) spoke about the simulation of mixed radiation fields at the NICA complex, revealing in his report aspects of the radiation protection of the Nuclotron and the booster, as well as hardware for obtaining radiation spectra close in composition to galactic cosmic rays.

Information from the JINR Press Office

Galina MYALKOVSKAYA