1. The Project NICA/MPD at JINR (Dubna) Search for the Mixed Phase of Strongly Interacting Matter at Nuclotron-based Ion Collider FAcility (1  1.5)·10 27 Average luminosity, L [cm -2 s -1 ] 2·10 27 Peak luminosity, L [cm -2 s -1 ] 0.009Beam-beam parameter 0.0044Laslett tune shift,  Q 200RF voltage, U RF [kV] 0.5Beta function at interaction points,  *, m  100IBS life time [sec] 0.001Momentum spread,  p/p 0.7Horizontal emittance,  [  mm mrad] 20Bunch number, n bunch 2.0·10 9 Particle number per bunch, N ion/bunch 1 / 3.5 Ion kinetic energy, E [GeV/u], min/max 251.2Ring circumference, m Collider parameters ▪ The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna is an international research organization established in accordance with the intergovernmental agreement of 11 countries in 1956. At the present time, eighteen countries are the JINR Member States. JINR has an extensive and fruitful collaboration with Germany, Hungary, Italy and the Republic of South Africa, having an Observer status at JINR and contributing their resources to projects of mutual interest. ▪ After 50 years of scientific activity the Institute plays a world leading role in a number of branches of fundamental physics. ▪ Long-term scientific cooperation is established with CERN and the main Laboratories of France, the USA (Fermilab, BNL, TJNL, LBL) and many other countries. ▪ The largest number of collaborative investigations are carried out with Russian research centers. ▪ The JINR research program in high energy particle and nuclear physics is carried out mainly at the accelerator facilities of other Laboratories: IHEP (Protvino), INR RAS (Troitsk), ITEP (Moscow), PI RAS (Moscow), BINP (Novosibirsk), Russian Research Center “Kurchatov Institute”, SINP MSU (Moscow), PNPI RAS (Gatchina), CERN, FNAL and BNL (USA), GSI and DESY (Germany) and others. ▪ The JINR basic facility for high-energy physics research is represented by the 6 AGeV Nuclotron which has replaced the old weak focusing 10 GeV proton accelerator Synchrophasotron. The first relativistic nuclear beams with an energy of 4.2 AGeV were obtained at the Synchrophasotron in 1971. Since that time the study of relativistic heavy ion physics problems has been one of the main directions of the JINR research program. 2 x 4  10 10 ions of 238 U 92+ t 3.5 GeV/u 500 MeV/u 5 MeV/u 300 keV/u 20 keV/u electron cooling 5 cycles of injection 2x20 cycles of injection KRION RFQ LINAC Booster Nuclotron Collider E ion /A Time Table of The Storage Process 8  s 0.1s 1s 2s 2 min MPD for the Mixed Phase experiment The experimental set-up of proposed MPD has to perform tracking of high multiplicity events and particle identification. The tracking system, both the vertex tracker based on silicon strip detectors and Central Tracking System based on gaseous tracking devices. These detectors are optimized for determination of the primary and secondary vertices and for precise tracking of low-momentum particles. All tracking detectors (SVS, CTS and FTS) are situated in the magnetic field of 1 T which is parallel to a beam direction. The detectors record the tracks of charged particles, measure their momenta and identify particles by measuring their ionization energy loss (dE/dx) with a good resolution. The Time Projection Chamber is an appropriate detector for reconstruction of events with high density tracks. For identification of secondary particles it is proposed to use Time of Flight Detectors. The Time of Flight array provides pion, kaon and proton identification. 350 cm 25 cm TOF Start TOF RPC Stop TOF Start Tracker SVT 4 planes ECal Interaction region ~50 cm Forward ECAL 30 cm ZDC 200 cm Scheme of MPD detector Beam Superconducting coil Accelerator quad Some basic parameters of MPD detector Interaction rate of Pb+Pb events at beams luminosity 10 27 cm -2 s -1 is 10 kHz. Interaction rate of central events is 500 /s. It is assumed that DAC system is capable to readout and store this data The accuracy of vertex positioning by means of silicon vertex detector is better then 0.2 mm The TPC produces 30 hits on track and provides momentum measurement accuracy 1 % in the range p = 0.2 – 2 GeV/c RPC time of flight system has time resolution 80 ps and provides π-К separation with probability 5% for p < 2 GeV/c. At low momenta p < 0.7 GeV/c all particle identification is achieved by ionization measurement in TPC The detector architecture is typical for colliders The nearest to the beam device is vertex silicon strip detector with pitch 0.2 mm The barrel detector is TPC. Version of the drift tubes tracker is also considered There are barrel TOF RPC system There are barrel and two end cup EM calorimeters Magnetic field 0.5 T parallel to the beam axis is provided by two superconducting coils Two near the beam sets of scintillator counters used as start devices for TOF measurements and on-line vertex positioning There are two ZDC calorimeters Superconducting Proton Synchrotron “Nuclotron” The Nuclotron, 6 A·GeV synchrotron based on unique fast-cycling superferric magnets, was designed and constructed at JINR (1987-1992) and commissioned in March 1993. The annual running time of 2000 hours is provided during the last years Ion beams up to krypton and polarized deuterons have been accelerated and extracted from the accelerator Unique technology of highly charged state ion sources (KRION-type) based on ionization by electron impact is developed. The ions up to Au have been obtained at the test bench The Project Milestones Stage 1: years 2007 – 2008 - Development of the Nuclotron facility - Preparation of Technical Design Report - Start prototyping of the MPD and NICA elements Stage 2: years 2008 – 2011 - Design and Construction of NICA and MPD detector Stage 3: years 2011 – 2012 - Assembling Stage 4: year 2013 - Commissioning Preinjector + Linac in collaboration with IHEP (Protvino) TOF TOF Initial colliding nuclei Interaction Freeze-out Basement of Synchrophasotron Booster Dipole magnet NICA scheme Booster (30 Tm) 5 single-turn injections, storage of 8 × 10 9 at electron cooling bunching & acceleration up to 590 MeV/u Nuclotron (45) Tm) injection of one bunch of 3 × 10 9 ions, acceleration up to 3.5 GeV/u max. Collider (37  45 Tm) Storage of 20 bunches  2.5  10 9 ions per ring at 3.5 GeV/u max., electron and/or stochastic cooling Injector: 2×10 9 ions/pulse of 238 U 30+ at energy 5 MeV/u IP-1 IP-2 Stripping (eff. 40%) 238 U 32+  238 U 92+ Two collider rings 2x20 injection cycles A. N. Sisakian for NICA collaboration NICA Layout MPD Phase trajectories in the phase diagram calculated within the 3-fluid hydrodynamic model for central Au+Au collisions at different energies (Yu. Ivanov V.N. Russkikh, V.D. Toneev, 2005; A.N. Sissakian, A.S. Sorin, M.K. Suleymanov, V.D. Toneev, G.M. Zinovjev, 2005, 2006). Freeze-out curve is shown by dots, the shaded region is a mixed phase for baryon and strange conserved charges. For E lab = 30 AGeV (  s NN = 8 GeV) the trajectory goes near the critical end-point. Points with numbers indicate the time of the system evolution (1 fm/c ~ 3.3·10 -24 sec) NICA