OREANDA-NEWS. February 9, 2009. The Large Hadron Collider project is a global program carried out by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). The conference was opened by the scientific manager of VNIIEF, academician Radiy Ilkayev. He said that 2009 was quite eventful: 50th birthday of the Scientific-Technical Council of the Nuclear Weapons Complex of Rosatom, the 60th anniversary of the first nuclear test. Ilkayev congratulated the audience on the Day of Russian Science and wished VNIIEF’s staff new scientific achievements.

Director of RFNC-VNIIEF Valentin Kostyukov welcomed the conferees. He said that in present-day Russia the role of science was constantly growing. The decisions adopted by the President and the Government are aimed at innovative development. Special role is given to nuclear weapons science.

2008 was quite successful for VNIIEF. The conferees heard a number of interesting reports:

Large Hadron Collider: Reality and Myths (author: Mikhail Gorbatenko, senior researcher of the Institute of Theoretical and Mathematical Physics)

Dark Energy. Dark Matter. Mysteries of XXI (author: Vasily Neznamov, vice chairman of the Scientific-Technical Council, Director of the Institute of Theoretical and Mathematical Physics)

Physics of ALICE Experiment (author: Alexander Khlebnikov, head of the Scientific Laboratory of the Institute of Theoretical and Mathematical Physics)

Contribution of RFNC-VNIIEF to ALICE Experiment in the Framework of Large Hadron Collider Project (author: Valery Punin, Director of the Institute of Nuclear and Radiation Physics).

Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has much better parameters than any of its analogues. LHC is the world’s largest and highest-energy particle accelerator, intended to collide opposing particle beams, protons at an energy of 7 TeV/particle or lead nuclei at 574 TeV/particle. LHC was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) with the intention of testing various predictions of high-energy physics, including the existence of the hypothesised Higgs boson and of the large family of new particles predicted by supersymmetry. It lies in a tunnel 27 kilometres (17 mi) in circumference, as much as 175 metres (570 ft) beneath the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland. It is funded by and built in collaboration with over 10,000 scientists and engineers from over 100 countries as well as hundreds of universities and laboratories.

They in VNIIEF perfectly understand that progress in fundamental science not only appeases the man’s thirst for enlarging his knowledge of nature and its rules but also boosts the development of applied science and engineering. LHC is one of the most important projects carried out in the field of international scientific cooperation in the last decade. It is funded by and built in collaboration with over 10,000 scientists and engineers from over 100 countries as well as hundreds of universities and laboratories. VNIIEF joined the project in 1996. Its contribution has been highly appreciated by the CERN and the whole international scientific community.