Joint Institute for Nuclear Research

the international scientific nuclear-physics center of the socialist countries. Located in the city of Dubna (Moscow Oblast). The agreement calling for establishment of the institute was signed in Moscow on Mar. 26, 1956. As of 1974, the members of the institute included scientists and specialists from ten member countries: the People’s Republic of Bulgaria, the Hungarian People’s Republic, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the German Democratic Republic, the Korean People’s Democratic Republic, the Mongolian People’s Republic, the Polish People’s Republic, the Socialist Republic of Rumania, the USSR, and the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.

According to the charter adopted on Sept. 23, 1956, the primary tasks of the institute are to provide for joint conduct of fundamental theoretical and experimental research in nuclear physics by scientists of member states, to promote the development of nuclear physics in those countries, and to maintain contact with interested national and international organizations in the development of nuclear physics and the search for new possibilities for the peaceful use of atomic energy. The activities of the institute (scientific work and new construction) are financed by payments from the member countries. All member countries have equal status in the conduct of research and in the administration of the institute, regardless of the amount of their payments.

The highest administrative body is the Committee of Plenipotentiaries, consisting often persons, one representative from each member country; scientific operations are directed by the Scientific Council, which includes the countries’ leading scientists. The director of the institute, two vice-directors, laboratory directors, and their deputies are elected for specific terms by the Committee of Plenipotentiaries or the Scientific Council. D. I. Blokhintsev, a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, was the first director of the institute, and Academician N. N. Bogoliubov was elected director in 1964. Vice-directors were Professors V. Votruba (Czechoslovakia), N. Sodnom (Mongolia), Kh. Khristov (Bulgaria), A. Hrynkevicz (Poland), and S. Titeica (Rumania). Among those working at the institute as of 1974 were Academicians B. M. Pontekorvo, G. N. Flerov, and I. M. Frank and corresponding members of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR A. M. Baldin, N. N. Govorun, V. P. Dzhelepov, M. G. Meshcheriakov, and D. V. Shirkov. Academician V. I. Veksler and corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR F. L. Shapiro made a major contribution to the organization and development of the institute.

The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research was formed from the Nuclear Problems Institute and the Electrophysics Laboratory of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. They became the first laboratories of the institute—the Nuclear Problems Laboratory and the High-energy Laboratory. At the time of establishment of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, the Theoretical Physics Laboratory was organized, and a resolution was adopted on the formation of the Nuclear Reactions Laboratory and the Neutron Physics Laboratory, at which research began in 1960. The Laboratory of Computer Technology and Automation was established in 1966. The laboratories of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research are major research institutes in terms of the scale and volume of scientific work conducted.

Research in high-energy physics and the physics of elementary particles is conducted at the Nuclear Problems Laboratory on a synchrocyclotron (commissioned in 1949) with a proton energy of 680 mega electron volts (MeV) and at the High-energy Laboratory on a synchrophasotron (commissioned in 1957) with a proton energy of 10 giga electron volts (GeV). Experiments in these laboratories are conducted with beams of various particles, including nucleons, pi-mesons, muons, kaons, deuterons, and alpha particles. Experiments for the study of the most important properties of nuclear forces and for experimental verification of the principles of modern physical theory have been carried out on unique equipment, and more than 100 new isotopes of chemical elements have been discovered. A new particle, the antisig-ma-minus-hyperon, was detected in 1960.

The Nuclear Problems Laboratory conducts research on nuclear transmutations under the action of accelerated heavy ions in the powerful U-300 cyclotron (commissioned in 1960), and also in the U-200 cyclotron, in which various multiply charged ions, including ¹³⁶Xe⁺³⁰, are accelerated. Isotopes of chemical elements with atomic numbers 102, 103, 104, and 105 have been synthesized, and phenomena of nuclear isomerism with an anomalously short period of spontaneous fission of nuclei and the phenomenon of proton radioactivity were discovered. A specially designed pulsed fast-neutron reactor (the IBR), which was rebuilt in 1969 as the IBR-30 with an output of 30 kilowatts (kW) and a pulse power of 150 MW, was constructed at the Neutron Physics Laboratory in 1960. Laboratory work is under way on many problems of the neutron spectroscopy of nuclei, and the structure and properties of condensed media and nuclear reactions with charged particles are being studied.

The Laboratory of Computer Technology and Automation has a large computer center that is connected, through a unified system, with computers located at the measurement centers of other laboratories. Automated processing of photographs obtained from bubble and spark chambers, and also work on the automation of physics experiments, is conducted at the laboratory.

The Theoretical Physics Laboratory conducts research in the principal trends of physical theory—field theory, theory of the structure of elementary particles and their interaction, and the theory of the nucleus and nuclear reactions.

The institute is a leading center for the development of new methods of accelerating charged particles and of acceleration and cryogenic equipment.

The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research implements extensive scientific collaboration with the national institutes of many countries and organizes international scientific meetings, conferences, and schools. The works of the institute’s scientists are published in many world journals, and publications (preprints and communications of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research) on work conducted at the institute are sent to 1,000 subscribers in 50 countries. The periodical journal Fizika elementarnykh chastits i atomnogo iadra (Physics of Elementary Particles and the Atomic Nucleus) has been published by the institute since 1970.