Division's head – Dr. Oleg L. Fedin
High Energy Physics Division (HEPD) consists of nine laboratories:
and three R&D departments:
About the Division
The HEPD's primary research activities focus on experimental studies in the fields of nuclear physics, particle physics, and applied physics.
The Division’s guiding principle is to make maximum use of the Institute’s experimental facilities and to have its staff participate in fundamental research at leading accelerator centers around the world, making significant intellectual and instrumental contributions. There is a strong emphasis on participation in applied research, particularly in the field of nuclear medicine.
The High Energy Physics Division (initially known as the High-Energy Physics Laboratory, or HEPL) was established in 1963 based on the staff of the X-ray and Gamma-Ray Laboratory at the Institute of Physics and Technology. Academician Anton Panteleymonovich Komar served as the laboratory's first director. Over the past half-century, physicists at the HEPD have conducted a series of world-class experiments—both at the SC-1000 accelerator at the NRC "Kurchatov Institute" - PNPI, at other Russian accelerators, and at accelerators at leading international nuclear research centers in Switzerland, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Finland, and the United States.
The HEPD’s main facility is the SC-1000 accelerator—one of the few operational accelerators in Russia. It has been in use for 50 years and is still in high demand among scientists. The proton beams and secondary beams of pi-mesons, muons and neutrons produced at SC-1000 enable conducting research into the possibilities of measuring the direction of high-energy charged-particle beams using crystals, studies using laser spectroscopy to investigate the properties of exotic nuclei with an anomalous proton-to-neutron ratio, studies of material properties using muons via the so-called µSR method. The SC-1000 Facility is also used for applied research—testing the radiation resistance of electronic components used in spacecraft. The Center of Stereotaxic Proton Therapy (CSPT) for treating brain aneurysms has operated using the SC-1000 proton synchrocyclotron.
In 2016, a new accelerator—the C-80 isochronous cyclotron—was commissioned. The launch of the C-80 accelerator will expand the possibilities for proton therapy for patients and also enable the production of a wide range of medical radionuclides.
HEPD researchers conducted groundbreaking studies at the WWR-M reactor on triple nuclear fission (ternary fission) and obtained important insights into the mechanism of nuclear fission. Using a new method proposed by Professor A.A. Vorobyov, a series of experiments on the small-angle scattering of protons and pi mesons was conducted using the unique IKAR ionization spectrometer developed at the Institute. These works were awarded the State Prize in 1983.
Researchers at the High Energy Physics Division conducted a highly precise study on muon-catalyzed \(dd\) and \(dt\) fusion. For the first time, a precision study of the elastic scattering of intermediate-energy protons (~1000 MeV) on nuclei was conducted using the MAP magnetic spectrometer developed at PNPI. The process of quasi-elastic scattering of protons on nuclei was also studied; that is, the process in which an incident proton knocks a single proton or neutron out of the nucleus. These experiments clearly demonstrated the shell structure of nuclei.
The spatial structure of light exotic nuclei was studied using the IKAR spectrometer. A mass-separation facility was built to study the properties of exotic nuclei. Resonance ionization spectroscopy was successfully applied for the first time to study the electromagnetic structure of such nuclei.
One of the Division’s most outstanding achievements is the development of a fundamentally new high-temperature selective laser ion source, which has made it possible to increase the sensitivity of laser spectroscopy by a factor of 10,000. It is worth noting that laser spectroscopic studies of exotic nuclei are conducted in Russia exclusively at our institute. This method has been used to measure the charge radii and electromagnetic moments of more than a hundred exotic nuclei.
V.M. Samsonov, A.I. Smirnov, and their colleagues carried out a series of studies to investigate the possibility of using crystals to deflect high-energy charged particle beams. These works were awarded the 1996 State Prize.
The most significant achievements in recent years are linked to the Division’s international activities. These results were obtained at the Large Hadron Collider—the world’s largest particle accelerator, located at CERN (Switzerland). Scientists from the HEPD have made a major contribution to the development of detectors for these colliders: at ATLAS, laboratory director O.L. Fedin and his team; at CMS and LHCb, a group of scientists led by Professor A.A. Vorobyov; and at ALICE, Professor V.M. Samsonov and his team. The Higgs boson was discovered in the ATLAS and CMS experiments.
Another significant result was obtained in the LHCb experiment (led by A.A. Vorobyov of the PNPI group). In this experiment, the extremely rare decay of the so-called Bs meson (composed of a charm and a strange quark) into two muons was observed. According to the Standard Model, such a decay occurs with very low probability. However, some theories that extend the Standard Model predict a probability of the Bs meson decaying into two muons that is much higher than that predicted by the Standard Model. The probability of the Bs meson decaying into two muons, as determined by the LHCb experiment and recently confirmed by the CMS experiment, was found to be in full agreement with the Standard Model. The result obtained provides strong support for the Standard Model.
It is worth noting another important result obtained by A.A. Vorobyov and his colleagues in an international experiment at the Paul Scherrer Institute’s meson factory in Switzerland. Using a method proposed by the HEPD scientists, one of the fundamental properties of the proton—the induced pseudoscalar form factor of the proton, gp—has been measured with sufficient accuracy for the first time. The measured value of gp was found to be in excellent agreement with the predictions of the Standard Model.
