[EOB]Russia To Create Its Own Version Of The Large Hadron Collider

Russian scientists are in the process of building their own version of the Large Hadron Collider (LHP). Efforts to implement what is already internationally known as the NICA project are in full swing in Dubna outside Moscow, where a session of the Russian government’s Commission on High Technology and Innovation was held earlier on Wednesday.

Speaking at the session, scientists from the Dubna Joint Institute for Nuclear Research explained that the NICA collider will consist of several accelerators, with one of them, the superconductive cryogenic nuclotron, already activated. 

There, the nucleus particles of gold molecules will be collided and accelerated towards each other at tremendous speed, in a process that scientists say will help them observe the transition of very dense nuclear material into a new state.  The basis for the NICA collider’s design was the synchrophasotron that was built in Dubna back in the 1950s and became the world’s largest particle accelerator at the time.

The hope is that the NICA collider will help shed more light on the creation of the Universe and contribute to the development of nuclear energy, aerospace industry and medicine in Russia.

Speaking at the Wednesday session, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, in turn, recalled that Russia is already participating in an array of major global projects, related to the LHC, the International Thermonuclear Reactor, the European X-Ray Free Electron Laser and the German Heavy-Ion Accelerator.

"All the necessary conditions exist to start building mega-class research installations in Russia that would be similar in size to the internationally renowned Large Hadron Collider. This would help to obtain results worthy of the Nobel prize, Putin says.  From this perspective, Russia remains an incontestable leader in certain areas of research to this effect," he concludes.

Meanwhile, more than 30 countries have already signaled their readiness to partake in the NICO project, seen by many foreign specialists as an opportunity to expand their scientific foothold in Russia, says Vladimir Kekelidze, of the Dubna Joint Institute for Nuclear Research.

"We do hope that our launching the NICA project will attract attention of thousands of young scientists from all across the globe, which is currently the case with the European Organization for Nuclear Research that is grappling with the LHP project, Kikilidze says. Our final goal is to turn Russia into the world’s largest nuclear research hub," he concludes.

The NICA project is expected to be launched in 2017.