Russian engineers started launching the "second stage" of the NICA collider

A scientific group from the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, namely in the laboratory near Moscow, began the active phase of preparation for the operation of the second stage of the accelerator, called NICA (the ion collider based on the Nuclotron) is a superconducting intermediate synchrotron Booster.

It will accelerate elements such as gold ions to energies of 578 megaelectronvolts per coulomb. This is one of the final steps, after which it remains to complete the installation of the large collider ring.

Russian accelerator nearing completion

Project NICA started in 2016 and, as scientists expect, in the finished device they will not engage in collision protons (as happens at the Large Hadron Collider), and will study the so-called quark-gluon plasma.

This is a state of matter in which quarks and gluons are able to be in a free state.

According to scientists, it was in this special state that the elements were in the very first moments immediately after the Big Bang.

The device of the Russian accelerator

This complex is made of several accelerators at once, which are collected in a kind of chain. The first link in this chain is the LU-20 linear accelerators.

Burster, on the other hand, will accelerate gold ions up to 578 megaelectronvolts and transfer them to the Nuclotron.

And the Nuclotron itself, in turn, will accelerate particles to energies of 4.5 gigaelectronvolts and already then redirect the accelerated particle to the main collider ring (which is now at the completion stage construction). Where the collisions of particles will take place.

When will the launch take place

At the moment, a smooth launch process is underway, which can last up to two weeks. In this case, it can take up to several days only to create an absolute vacuum in the installation.

In this case, the process of smooth cooling of superconducting magnets to a temperature that corresponds to the temperature of the liquid state of helium will also occur in parallel.

Immediately after the full range of initial tests and checks in the accelerator is completed, a beam will be formed, but initially it will be either deuterium or carbon nuclei.

It is planned that the procedure for launching the "second stage" will be completed in the first decade of December. And the complex will be fully operational in 2022, but at this stage a variety of experiments are underway.

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