NUST MISIS to Launch Laboratory for Participation in CERN Experiments

NUST MISIS plans to launch a laboratory to implement projects for collaborations on LHCb and SHiP experiments. Its employees will work on the implementation of four major projects — two of them through LHCb collaboration and the other two through SHiP collaboration. The department will be led by CERN project managers.

On June 14th, 2017, NUST MISIS joined the list of participants for the LHCb experiment, a large international project of MegaScience level at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). This is the second CERN experiment the University has become a part of—in 2015 NUST MISIS became a participant in the SHiP experiment.

For the LHCb collaboration NUST MISIS scientists will develop radiation-hard silicon sensors, as well as radiation-resistant scintillators and lightguides for the LHCb colorimeter. For SHiP, prototypes of superconducting magnetic elements will be created, and NUST MISIS will also conduct work on an emulsion neutrino detector.

About 30 highly-qualified professionals from both Russia and abroad will work on the implementation of these projects. It is expected that the laboratory will be opened at the end of 2017 and the projects will be successfully completed by 2020, allowing the researchers to then proceed to other projects.

“Researchers from CERN rely on the expertise of NUST MISIS scientists, who have already developed crystals for the colorimeter of the CMS installation at the Large Hadron Collider. Today, our aim is to establish a joint group which will include developer-materials scientists from NUST MISIS and physicists engaged in fundamental science. The first group of them will solve engineering problems — develop crystals, magnets with high saturation, special alloys from steel for obtaining superstrong magnetic fields, scintillators, etc. The second group of researchers will make prototypes to test them for beams of particles and to analyze the data”, said Professor Andrei Golutvin from the Department of High Energy Physics at the Imperial College in London, head of the NUST MISIS Center for Infrastructure Collaboration & Partnership MegaScience.

According to Andrei Golutvin, NUST MISIS was chosen as the site to launch the lab for a reason — the University has all the necessary resources for the successful implementation and solution of all four projects.

“Additionally, on June 14th in Geneva, a consensus decision on welcoming NUST MSIS to the LHCb collaboration was made”, said Professor Andrei Golutvin.

Within the framework of NUST MISIS and CERN collaboration, NUST MISIS and the University of Naples Federico II will launch a joint PhD program to train specialists for CERN. It is expected that the University of Zurich and the Imperial College in London will also join the PhD program.

This news was announced at the meeting between representatives of CERN’s SHiP project, Professor Giovanni De Lellis from the University of Naples Federico II (Naples, Italy), and NUST MISIS management.

Graduates of the international program will obtain a Candidate of Science degree from two universities — NUST MISIS and one of the international universities participating in the program. The agreement on the establishment of the joint graduate program will be signed in early October 2017.

“Our aim is to train international specialists with expertise at the intersection of the junction of materials science and fundamental physics. About 4-6 people are planned to enroll in the program. Candidates will be subject to very strict requirements. We focus on quality, not quantity”, — commented Professor Giovanni De Lellis.

The new lab and PhD program will be launched within the framework of NUST MISIS’s participation in Project 5-100.

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