Dubna. A small town 120 kilometers from Moscow
with a population of a little under 75,000.
[GEO]DUBNA
It’s no more than a tiny dot on the map, but it’s
actually the very center of Russian nuclear physics
and home to a major international scientific
facility – the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research.
[Vitaly Buzuev, correspondent]Built in Soviet times, the
Synchrophasotron particle accelerator produced record energy levels.
[VO]Several new chemical elements have been synthesised
here too. One of them was even named after the town, Dubnium.
[VO]Everyone who works here is seeking an answer to two of the hardest questions of
the millennium: how was our Universe formed, and what were its building bricks?
[Nikolay]Everyone knows it's impossible.
[NIKOLAY AZORSKY, LEADING ENGINEER OF THE LABORATORY
OF HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS OF THE JOINT INSTITUTE
FOR NUCLEAR RESEARCH]Then a man comes along
who's unaware of that, and he makes the discovery
[VO]As part of this international mega-science research
project, a collider is being built in Dubna. Its goal is to
allow the scientists to study matter as they believe it
existed just after the Big Bang that formed our universe.
[VO]This is a time machine that will take us back 14 billion years.
[YURI POTREBENIKOV, DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF THE JINR
LABORATORY OF HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS]The accelerator
complex we're trying to build will allow us to become
one of the leaders in the field of particle physics
[Vitaly]'Collider' suggests a collision.
[Vitaly]The experiment accelerates and collides elementary
particles of atoms, breaking them down to the smallest parts
[Vladimir]It's our 1st collider.
[VLADIMIR KEKELIDZE, VICE-DIRECTOR OF THE
JOINT INSTITUTE FOR NUCLEAR RESEARCH]Not like a
circular accelerator, it's like 2 snipers aiming
at each other's bullets. A first time for us!
[Vladimir]We have many close calls! What will be? How will it be?
[Vladimir]Well, we'll do everything we can to launch it
RUSSIA’S NICA BIG BANG QUESTIONS
[VO]A particle accelerator, called a Nuclotron, is at the
heart of this international mega-science project. It was built
in Dubna back in the mid-1990s and later fully upgraded.
That is, in fact, what gave the project its name, NICA.
[Vladimir]NICA stands for Nuclotron-based Ion Collider facility
[Vladimir]So, the Nuclotron lies at the heart of this project
BOOSTER NUCLOTRON
[Yuri]Physicists took particular interest in our
accelerator, which was operational at that time.
[VO]That particular interest was provoked by the energy
at which particles collided: 10 gigaelectronvolts.
[Vitaly]Let's try to figure out some of the terms any academician
or research fellow knows, starting with the Big Bang Theory
[VO]These days, this is the most accepted model for
describing how the Universe began literally from nothing.
[VO]In the beginning was the Big Bang!
10-33= 0,000000000000000000000000000000001 cm
[VO]And then a dot the size of 10 to the power of
-33 centimeters started to expand, very quickly!
10-44= 0,00000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 sec
[VO]It was in the first 10 to the power of -44
seconds, that our Universe came into being.
[VO]Taking matter apart brick by brick, to understand how they were laid,
is an incredibly ambitious goal and that’s where the collider comes in.
[VO]We all remember from our physics school books, the
structure of an atom which consists of charged particles
– protons, electrons.
[Vitaly]Ions are atoms too, but if an atom loses an
electron, it becomes charged. Am I right?
[Yuri]Yes!
[VO]Atoms won’t accelerate on their own because they’re neutral.
[VO]Particles that bump into each other in a collider are charged.
[VO]And when they collide, they release so much energy, they disintegrate
into quarks and gluons, the smallest particles known to us today.
[Yuri]Theoreticians say matter has two states: quark-gluon
matter and hadron matter, where our world and we exist
[Yuri]We say there's also a mixed phase, when both types of matter are
present As with water: when it boils, you get both water and steam
[Yuri]That's the mixed phase, or the 3rd state of matter
[Yuri]Study the steam bubbles. That's the gist of it
[Vladimir]It's a very ambitious goal for us, a Nobel prize-level goal
[VO]Since the 1960s, more than 30 colliders have been built around the world,
famously in Switzerland and the US. They run at ultra-high energy levels.
[VO]The one being built in Russia will focus on
searching for new states of ultra-dense nuclear matter.
[Vladimir]We decided to make a collider that could achieve the
maximal density of nuclear, or rather baryonic matter.
[VO]Baryons are mostly protons and neutrons that make up everything around us. But
the density researchers project here is only found in a neutron star nucleus.
[Vladimir]We study what was inside neutron stars
CERN's more about studying the Big Bang moment itself
[VO]For the CERN project in Switzerland, they had to dig a
circular tunnel 100 meters underground and with a 27-kilometre
circumference. The Russian project, NICA, needs a
closed-circuit tunnel of just 503-metres and it’s above ground.
[Yuri]2 rings: particles circulate clockwise in one, counterclockwise in the other
[Yuri]Everything is arranged so that the beams pass the intersection
points, about 0.5 meters apart, and here they might collide
[Vitaly]Assembly of one of the most important sections of
NICA is almost done This is the beating heart of the collider
[Vitaly]It's where the charged particles collide!
[Yuri]10 to the power of 27 particles must pass
through 1 sq. centimeter of the surface area per second
[Vitaly]Charged particles fly from both sides,
entering a uniform field They collide here!
7,000 will collide... 7,000 per second!
[Yuri]So, we'll detect these 7,000 collisions
[Vitaly]How particles interact isn't fully understood Their
size makes them indiscernible not only to human eyes
but also to many special devices In this microcosm,
a tiny grain of sand is equivalent to planet Earth!
[VO]Some 2 billion charged particles, ions, will
fly at 300,000 kilometers per second, collide
7,000 times a second and break into quarks. And
it will all be tracked by special detectors.
[Yuri]You must isolate each particle, determine its curvature, momentum,
and how much energy it's lost before saying what particle it is
[VO]This is the lab where they’re making the multi-purpose detector, or MPD, for short.
[Michael]We measure the time taken for particles to go a known distance
[Michael]This detector can accurately measure
particle flight time down to 50 picoseconds
[Michael]Light's the fastest thing in our universe,
and travels only 1.5 cm in 50 picoseconds
[Michael]We can gauge the moment a particle
passes through the detector with that precision
MPD MULTIPURPOSE DETECTOR
[Michael]The first stage of an MPD is when its barrel
is ready The intersection region is enclosed
in the tracking system barrel, time-of-flight
system barrel, and calorimeter barrel
[Michael]Physics explains many things: its theories describe practically all phenomena
occurring around us So we can replicate processes that took place 14 billion
years ago, and replicate on Earth now what happened back then NICA can do this!
[Michael]It's a very interesting tool for understanding how our universe was formed
[Vladimir]Producing the hardware and building the
accelerator accounts for just 10% of our success
[Vladimir]90% comes from the creative ideas our people come up with Sometimes you hit
a dead-end. So you brainstorm a while, until someone comes up with a solution
[Nikolay]Let's go!
[Nikolay]I'm figuring out how it can be done! 'Know how' means I know how!
[Nikolay]Sometimes you get it instantly but we can spend weeks, trying various options
[Nikolay]People who do things like this are called fine mechanics
[Nikolay]The way the NICA complex has been designed is quite unique
[Nikolay]What can you do with it? The experts say you
can carry out experiments that aren't possible
with CERN's collider We plan to set up modern,
state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities here
[Yuri]We work at CERN a lot. We're kind of observers there, and they're observers here
[Yuri]We stage plenty of joint experiments
[Vladimir]Truth is the highest goal of science. We're interested in what they do and
vice versa. We're both rivals and partners. So we help each other by making detectors
and accelerators. They share what they're better at, and we do the same in
return. We're interested in each other's success. We're competitive, of course.
[Vladimir]After all, who
doesn't want to win?
[Yuri] Naturally, we can't make everything here For example, the
magnet. Only 2 firms in the world are capable of building one.
[Man] More? A little bit more... bit more!
[Man] That's it, lower it, like that! Lower it!
[Man]Lowering! Like this, right?
[Man] Yes, yes, yes... OK?
[Man] Yes! All good our end!
[VO]This piece of hardware costs 15 million euros. It was made in Italy.
[Vladimir]It's a giant coil enclosed in a cryostat, like a barrel. The cryostat
containing the coil itself weighs 70 tones, while the packaging is about 35.
[Vladimir]No one's ever made such a piece of kit before. It's unique! Along with the
coil, this whole set should generate a correct and precise magnetic field.
[Vladimir]If anything goes wrong, if any parts
misalign, by even a fraction of a millimeter,
we might not get the quality of the magnetic field we need. That's also a concern.
[Yuri]It's crucial because the main detector inside, the Time
Projection Chamber (TPC), can only operate in a uniform field.
In everyday life, it only takes a little kick or
push to accelerate a body or small particle Atomic
dimensions are different You need a really powerful
electric field, generated by hardware like this solenoid
Look at its size!
[Yuri]If we encounter problems, say, if the magnetic field measurements throw up
issues, we'll have to do something about it But we don't have any time for that!
[Vitaly]This was installed as early as the Soviet era. Parts of
an elementary particle accelerator, the Synchrophasotron.
[Vitaly]And, it was so reliable it could still work today
but it used too much power. A new accelerator,
[VITALY BUZUEV, CORRESPONDENT]the Nuclotron, sits next to its powerful
predecessor. The link between generations is clear, it's no museum!
[Anna]It's a huge project! Of course, lots of
people do lots of things, if someone's good at
manual work, they might make detectors or study
their characteristics There's plenty of room
[ANNA MAKSIMCHUK, TECHNICAL COORDINATOR OF THE BM@N EXPERIMENT THE
NICA PROJECT]for programming if your interest is in analysing data
[Anna]It's a great platform for new recruits who don't have to go anywhere,
they can just work here, at the JINR. It's exciting new physics
[Mikhail]Work in science and engineering probably gives you an opportunity
to grow and develop Most tasks are new and it's up to you to find
solutions Your day starts with a search for information on what's
already known for the task Each day is a constant intellectual search
[MIKHAIL RUMYANTSEV, RESEARCHER AT THE JINR LABORATORY OF
HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS]If it's a really tough task, you go home
and think about it every second Cooking fries, you think
about how you can get it to work You go to bed, but can't
sleep, you keep wondering why it works this way, not that way Sometimes you
even try mental calculations but realise it won't work, and reach for a pen
[VO]This is Dubna State University, where Mikhail teaches
physics, and selects future specialists for the NICA project.
[Woman]It's not changing
[Woman]Could it possibly be 65?
[Mikhail]Many of our staff are from Dubna State University.
[Mikhail]Moscow State University graduates too, it has a branch here in Dubna
[Mikhail]Also at the JINR, we have a summer student
programme for students from anywhere in the world.
[YURI POTREBENIKOV, DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF THE JINR
LABORATORY OF HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS]Who could have
thought 5 years ago, that 80 Polish students would
study in our lab It was a tough competition in Poland
[Krystian]The results that physicists achieve are like a beautiful
flower A flower has roots, yes? Our engineering support
is the roots, underground, invisible to others but...
[KRYSTIAN ROSLON, HEAD OF THE ENGINEERING SUPPORT SECTOR OF THE MPD
INSTALLATION]without them, we'd never have those beautiful flowers
[Yuri]This group develops what we call
'slow-control' systems For example, if a pump's out
of order, we must be notified If a fluid should be a specific temperature, but is
too hot or cold, that too must be indicated. Or if water flows the wrong way… We must
be able to monitor it, or have automatic measures that activate to tackle a problem
[Man]That's right...
[Krystian]I first came here in 2014 for practical training I just love it
here, because you can do plenty of stuff manually, that you
can't do at any other center, like CERN or BNL Here though, I
can combine my work: first, data analysis and second, engineering
[Krystian]No...
[Krystian]No, we need to connect 3 phases
[Krystian]Right, we would have, but Philip... Philip turned it off
[Krystian]And thirdly, I get to hold a thing in
my hands and do stuff with it So, I'm certain
that, for me, personally, the experience I get here, I couldn't get anywhere else
[Yuri]I think that, after all, very clever people set up this institute They realised
that a country's reputation depended on founding organisations like this
[VO]The NICA project total investment fund is estimated
at 500 million dollars. Any delay in installing
the accelerator would cause not just reputational,
but also substantial financial damage.
[Yuri]The collider launch is scheduled for late December
2022 A tough deadline, even by our standards Especially,
with all the... unfortunate restrictions due to the
pandemic Meeting that deadline will be very hard
[Nikolay]It's nothing too complicated,
it just requires very precise work.
[Nikolay]Work in physics demands a high level of refinement in precision,
but without using any polishing or grinding compounds, because the
particles penetrate the copper, and cause electrical breakdowns, and
lost physics You need to do it with a graver... and nothing but a graver
[Nikolay]Well, that's been processed
[Nikolay]Yes, I'd say that it's more or less refined.
[VLADIMIR KEKELIDZE, VICE-DIRECTOR OF THE JOINT INSTITUTE FOR NUCLEAR
RESEARCH]Invest in science and you never know what you get, you may
lose money but still invest, you'll get something Any basic science
achievement pays back the costs of all science research in history.
[Vladimir]When Faraday discovered electricity, he wasn't improving candles
[Vladimir]He made a fundamental discovery, and we're here to see it
[Vladimir]With bunches of heavy ions in the types of energy we have, we
can work on, say, biological protection systems, and study biological
impact. Why's that important? Because in deep space... the impact
of ion components, the components we use, is highly critical for
electronic devices, and for... biological items And as we know, if
a human goes to Mars, they might be protected from physiological
radiation damage, but the impact on cognitive ability might be so
big, that they might change entirely, or lose their mind completely.
[Yuri]And, you may know, medicine uses carbon ion therapy very effectively A tumor,
for example You can destroy tumor cells, burn them out without doing more harm
[Yuri]Totally smooth skin, I mean, no cancer cells left at all, and 97% recover fully
in three months Here, we'll create similar bursts of energy with our booster
[VO]Decrypting, analysing and storing such a huge quantity of data, all based
on complex physics experiments, calls for some serious processing power.
[VLADIMIR KORENKOV, DIRECTOR OF JINR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY LABORATORY]More than 20 years ago,
the total capacity of these tape drives was 10
terabytes! 10 terabytes! To us, that was fantastic!
[Vladimir]We thought we could never use all that. But if we look at
our current rack, we have 10 terabytes in a single cassette!
[Yuri]As data is written, it's processed repeatedly
[Vitaly]So, it gets written, yes? Then the accelerator itself, the collider…
[Yuri]It always works, it must… [Vitaly] So, collision, collision..?
[Yuri]Yes! We estimate it will run 4,000-5,000 hours a year
[Yuri]Always, you know?
[Yuri]Let's say... it takes 10 minutes to fill the collider with particles, right?
[Yuri]And, it runs for an hour. 10 minutes to fill, for an hour. 5,000 hours.
[Vitaly]But you already get 7,000 a second. What more do you need?
[Yuri]For the big picture, you need statistics. 7,000 is nothing!
[VO]That’s why the number of events, or collisions could be enormous.
[VO]All for the sake of studying the structure of
the matter that made, and makes up, our Universe.
[Yuri]We'll look for a critical point in what's called
the 'phase transition', and the points before
that. To find it, we take tiny steps Here, here…
[Yuri]We may get there in the end. It's a point, you
see? Look here, find nothing, find nothing here,
or we wouldn't get here, see? To get there, you
take tiny steps, and at each step, you retrieve
statistics, millions of events, to see something
[Vitaly]So, you need some luck?
[Yuri]No, luck's different. Luck is for those who
know what's what, but yes, it takes luck! You
may accidentally get there first time or, like
normal people, at the very end, by searching
[VO]It’s like searching for a needle in a haystack. You can search for a year, or two,
or even considerably more. And even then, there’s no guarantee you’ll find it.
[Vladimir]As a rule, the more complex a problem is, the more
statistics you need It can take years! Sometimes 5, or even 10
[VO]The famous Higgs boson was discovered at the Large Hadron Collider in
Switzerland in 2012 but its existence was first predicted as early as 1964.
[Vitaly]NICA, 20 years! Will the project last that long?
[Yuri]Well, 20 at least! When it launches is more interesting. We propose to launch
in 2022 We have plans already but we may have a delay of 6 to 12 months
[Vitaly]Scientists love to look back at the distant
past and into the future, both sides of infinity! But
what if that critical transition point, when matter
switched from one form to another, is never found?
[Yuri]Interesting tasks attract many people. Some may win a Nobel
Prize, but some won't get a thing That's life, life isn't fair
[Yuri]Even if they get nothing at all, here, in Russia
there will still be many intelligent people.
[Mikhail]For me, it will certainly be a big event, we've been waiting so long!
[Yuri]Lots of clever people always means you get
something good Even if it's not quite what you expected!