DUBNA (Moscow Region), August 8 (RIA Novosti) – Germany, Bulgaria and three former Soviet republics have agreed to join efforts with Russia to build a heavy-ion collider in a Moscow suburb, according to a letter of intent, signed Thursday.
The collider, planned to be built by 2017 on the premises of the already existing Nuclotron particle accelerator in the town of Dubna, will reportedly be able to accelerate and collide protons and relatively heavy ions, such as gold, to study a recently discovered phase of matter, a plasma of fundamental particles quarks and gluons.
The collider, dubbed NICA (Nuclotron-based Ion Collider fAcility), will presumably involve scientists, equipment and financing from Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Bulgaria and Germany, said Viktor Matveyev, director of Russia’s Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, which will house the facility.
The memorandum of intent “is a formal expression of interest of these countries in working out legal, organizational, scientific and financial issues that must be resolved to ensure the participation of these countries in the implementation of the NICA megaproject,” Matveyev told RIA Novosti.
