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- The Big Bang Theory: how domestic megascience helps to unravel the mysteries of the Universe
The Big Bang Theory: how domestic megascience helps to unravel the mysteries of the Universe
The scientific and technological revolution, which took place due to the boom in research of the last century, led to the emergence of technologies that qualitatively changed people's lives. However, no less than the creation of material wealth, scientists are interested in finding the keys to understanding the existing picture of the world. Experts are actively seeking to learn more about the mysteries of the universe in the 21st century. Researchers from different countries, including Russia, are paying attention to these fundamental issues. How megascience projects are being developed in the Russian Federation and what benefits they will bring to the country and the world — in the Izvestia article.
The Key to understanding the Universe
Today, two megascience projects stand out prominently in the active research activities of Russian scientists - the NICA complex in Dubna and the Baikal Neutrino Telescope. Both of them are aimed at studying the processes taking place in outer space. It's just that the first one allows you to look into the past, learning more about the birth of the universe, and the second one gives you the opportunity to explore unique particles from deep space that reach the Earth in the present.
According to modern scientists, the matter existing in our universe can be ordinary and dark. The first, which is also called baryonic, consists of atoms, and they, in turn, consist of nuclei and electrons. The basis of atomic nuclei are protons and neutrons, consisting of quarks and gluons.
Therefore, the latter are actually the "bricks" from which everything that exists in the world is created. However, it is not so easy to study them: now these substances are in a "cemented" state. Scientists believe that billions of years ago, one millionth of a second after the Big Bang, quarks and gluons were in a free state due to the enormous temperatures and density of matter, forming a quark-gluon plasma. Knowledge about the process of its transformation into baryonic matter is still more of a theory, to confirm which scientists are trying to repeat the process of evolution of the Universe in the laboratory.
The Russian megaproject NICA Complex is designed to help in the reconstruction of quark-gluon plasma. In a sense, the underlying technology can be compared to a time machine, since it will allow us to look into the past in the future in order to learn more about the appearance of our world.
A comprehensive look into the past
For the first time, the megaproject "NICA Complex" was presented at a meeting of the government commission on Innovations and High Technologies back in July 2011. It was selected from 28 proposals among the megascience projects potentially promising for implementation in Russia.
The Laboratory of High Energy Physics is engaged in the creation of the complex by order of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR). Various contracting organizations and international collaborations are also involved.
A key part of the NICA megaproject is the superconducting proton and heavy ion collider. Its main task is to study baryonic matter. There are currently only a few colliders in the world, and each one is unique because it has its own purpose. For example, the Russian accelerator differs significantly from the famous Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The LHC allows you to search for new particles and study ultra-hot matter, while the NICA collider is focused on studying ultra-dense matter, phase transitions and the structure of nuclear matter.
Fundamental physics rarely gives quick results, so the NICA collider was put into operation only 10 years after the start of construction, which started in 2013. The technical launch was successfully carried out in June 2024, proving the reliability of the installation systems. Already in April 2026, the accelerator reached its design parameters.
However, the NICA complex includes more than just the collider. The total area of the complex, designed for the arrangement of equipment, the organization of experimental and technological sites, experimental areas, computing power and staff accommodation, exceeds 84 thousand square meters. m. And it also houses several other accelerators, also necessary for research.
Theory and practice
The significance of the NICA project lies in the fact that it has a high versatility, proving useful not only for pure physics, but also for applied research.
In particular, specialists are already using its technologies to irradiate biological samples, materials for microelectronics and medical phantoms (models of human body parts imitating tissues and organs). The results of these experiments will be useful in radiation biology, in the development of new materials, testing electronics designed for extreme conditions, and even in the processing of hazardous radioactive waste.
The implementation of the megaproject is also important in terms of strengthening international cooperation. The NICA complex can be called a bridge for establishing communication with other states, even in conditions of geopolitical turbulence. The study of the physics of the Universe unites researchers from different countries, including China, India, Latin America, the UAE, as well as European specialists.
Scientists from several dozen foreign institutes are already working on the basis of the NICA complex. It is expected that in the future, innovative and applied work will attract even more teams of foreign specialists capable of solving a wide range of tasks to JINR.
Out of sight
Another Russian megaproject aimed at exploring the universe is the Baikal Neutrino Telescope (Baikal-GVD). As the name suggests, it helps to study neutrinos, which are considered the most intriguing among all known elementary particles today.
Neutrinos are a unique carrier of information about processes occurring in deep space. The fact is that the interstellar space in the center of the Milky Way is filled with dense clouds of dust and gas, in which ordinary light and radio waves are stuck. There are no such barriers for neutrinos that interact super weakly with matter, Andrey Tanaev, director of the Research Institute of Applied Physics at Irkutsk State University, tells Izvestia.
— Neutrinos are able to fly through dense gas clouds without hindrance, besides being neutral particles, they are not deflected by intragalactic magnetic fields. In fact, these are ideal space couriers," he explains.
However, it is impossible to see neutrinos with human-made devices designed to detect charged particles. Back in the last century, neutrino telescopes came to the rescue — special devices that allow you to capture the Cherenkov glow that occurs when neutrinos interact with each other.
For the first time, the idea of using deep natural reservoirs to detect neutrinos was expressed back in 1960 by the theoretical physicist Moses Markov, who suggested that light from a cascade of charged particles arising from the interaction of neutrinos could be detected in water. Testing this hypothesis, however, turned out to be difficult and very expensive in practice, so the first attempt to implement such a project in the 1970s was made not in the USSR, but in the USA.
The Americans, however, failed to achieve success. But in the Soviet Union, experimental physicist Alexander Chudakov, returning to Markov's idea 20 years later, proposed using Lake Baikal, which has high transparency of fresh deep waters, sufficient depth and the presence of a strong ice cover, allowing installation of deep-sea equipment from it, as a reservoir for research.
Lake Baikal
In the same year, 1980, the neutrino laboratory of high-energy astrophysics appeared in the USSR. A year later, it began working with detectors underwater. The first three garlands of the future Baikal neutrino telescope were immersed in the lake in 1993. And pretty quickly, they were able to detect neutrinos for the first time, which was a breakthrough for the entire world community.
By 1998, the completed telescope, considered the first stage of Baikal-GVD, consisted of eight 72-meter garlands with 192 detectors. At the same time, the design of the second stage was completed in modern Russia, by 2010. And in April 2015, 345-meter garlands were presented in the Dubna demonstration cluster.
Over the next three years, three basic telescope clusters were placed. By 2021, their number reached eight, which brought the working volume of the telescope to 0.4 cubic meters. According to Andrey Tanaev, 16 operational clusters have now been commissioned, which has turned the facility into the largest neutrino detector in the Northern Hemisphere, second only to the IceCube neutrino telescope located in the Arctic.
Despite the fact that the neutrino telescope on Lake Baikal began operating quite a long time ago, the installation is still not fully operational. In the future, they want to increase the Baikal-GVD grid to half a cubic meter, which will allow it to overtake IceCube in scale.
The evolution of technology
The structure and operating principle of the Baikal Neutrino Telescope still remain unchanged. The main innovations of recent years have affected the technological component.
According to Andrey Tanaev, the Baikal-GVD project is a huge challenge for Russian engineers. The telescope's equipment, operating at depths up to 1,350 m, is subjected to constant high pressure, reaching 130 atmospheres. At the same time, devices located in icy water must remain absolutely airtight for decades.
The need to solve these problems, according to the physicist, stimulated the emergence of a number of import-substituting and unique domestic developments, among which he names magnetic screens that protect highly sensitive photomultipliers inside deep-sea modules from the effects of the Earth's magnetic field, electronic boards and data acquisition units with nanosecond time resolution and low energy consumption at extreme temperatures, deep-sea semiconductor lasers, necessary To calibrate optical channels directly underwater, deep-sea cable couplings and wiring, which are pressure-resistant connecting housings for the tips of main optoelectric cables, as well as sonar positioning systems that allow determining the coordinates of each optical module in real time with an accuracy of up to 10 cm.
In the future, all these technologies can be used in other industries, from oceanology and the oil and gas industry to the defense industry.
In addition, the uniqueness of the instrument base has turned the telescope into a powerful tool for interdisciplinary research, which is already bringing practical benefits, says Andrey Tanaev. First of all, we are talking about the use of an installation for environmental monitoring.
— Our detectors constantly monitor the physical properties of water. The hydrological parameters of the lake are studied: temperature, currents, transparency. Baikal-GVD is, in fact, a huge observatory of the state of Lake Baikal. And Lake Baikal contains 20% of the world's freshwater reserves. Data on his condition is a matter of national security," the Izvestia interlocutor emphasizes.
Breakthrough Economics
The Russian authorities are also making high bets on Baikal-GVD. For example, Russian Minister of Science and Higher Education Valery Falkov previously noted that the project is significant not only because of its benefits for basic science, but also in terms of the multiplier effect it will have on the development of the region.
Every ruble invested in a megascience class installation is returned to the economy in multiple amounts, confirms Andrey Tanaev. Although the direct economic effect of a neutrino telescope, unlike a multiplicative one, is difficult to measure. The most obvious benefit that technology brings is the creation of new jobs.
— More than 70 people participate in the annual winter expeditions to Lake Baikal. These are engineers, physicists, hydrologists, IT specialists, divers, logisticians. And all of them live and work in Russia, many in the Irkutsk region, where they pay taxes," the expert draws attention.
The implementation of the project has a significant impact on the development of the region's infrastructure, he adds. It is not enough just to create a scientific facility, it is also necessary to provide transport logistics, communications, energy conservation, etc. Every ruble invested in infrastructure yields at least a ruble and a half in related industries, the expert says.
However, the scientist considers the development of intellectual capital to be the most important effect. Baikal-GVD has historically been operated by the Baikal collaboration, which includes large institutes and universities, including the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, the Institute for Nuclear Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Irkutsk State University, Lomonosov Moscow State University, and others. Therefore, the project attracts talented young people to the region, which contributes to the development of the scientific school and increases the prestige of regional education.
At the same time, the collaboration within the framework of the Baikal Neutrino Telescope project was international from the very beginning, Andrei Tanaev recalls. Over the years, it has been attended by specialists from various countries, including Germany, the Czech Republic, France, etc. The geography of this cooperation, according to the expert, continues to expand. For example, experts from the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences are showing serious interest in the project.
Fundamental physics, according to the scientist, is generally a field where boundaries are blurred. The exchange of scientific data and the coordination of observations do not stop, despite the difficult geopolitical situation.
— The results of our measurements are recognized by the international community and are regularly published in leading international journals such as Physical Review and The Astrophysical Journal. Scientists from all over the world continue to participate in the analysis of Baikal neutrinos, because without Baikal-GVD data it is impossible to obtain a complete "neutrino map" of the sky, — says the source.
And in the BRICS+ space, according to him, the Baikal-GVD project is one of the scientific and technological flagships. Due to the unique natural properties of Lake Baikal and the competencies accumulated over the previous years, Russia is not just a participant, but a leader and a key technological donor of megaprojects of the future.
—The presence of such a large—scale and successfully operating installation on our territory is a weighty scientific and political argument confirming Russia's status as a great scientific power capable of uniting the best minds of the planet around itself," emphasizes Andrey Tanaev.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
