On 27 August 2026, the second run was initiated at the NICA Accelerator Complex in its basic configuration. The main purpose of the run is to start the main MPD systems and register collisions of counter-rotating xenon ion beams using the detector installed in the operating position. Chief Engineer of the NICA Accelerator Complex Evgeny Syresin spoke about the plans and main tasks for this run.
The run began with the launch and configuration of the KRION-6T Heavy Ion Source at the LUTI Linear Accelerator. On 3 September, employees of the Accelerator Division of the Laboratory of High Energy Physics at JINR began simultaneously cooling the magnetic systems of the superconducting synchrotrons – the Booster and Nuclotron. According to the plan, after the Booster magnets enter operating mode, a xenon ion beam will be injected into it and accelerated, then transferred and accelerated in the Nuclotron. By the end of September, work will begin on transporting the beams through transfer channels from the Nuclotron to the collider in order to start configuring injection into the collider in early October. In the second half of October, VBLHEP employees plan to install the MPD Detector in the operating position at the beam collision point. At the same time, a special wire target will be placed inside the MPD vacuum chamber, designed to ensure the confident registration of secondary particles in detection systems and their debugging.
At first, this target will be used for beam collisions. In this sense, the experiment will be similar to BM@N using beams extracted from the Nuclotron, except in this case, the beams will circulate for a long time with a gradual decrease in the number of accumulated particles due to a small part of them interacting with the target. The employees’ task is to observe the interaction of the beams with this target in the MPD and adjust the detector equipment accordingly: ions will interact with the target noticeably more than two colliding beams, which should make the adjustment process easier. This is the first task for the current run.
The second task is to switch from an experiment with a target in the collider to colliding circulating counter-rotating beams in the centre of MPD by the end of the year. To do this, scientists will need to multiply the intensity of the circulating beams in the collider compared to the first run. After that, the registration of the first events in the NICA Collider will begin.
There is a third priority task to be completed at the beginning of the second run. This November, it is necessary to demonstrate to the commission the operability of all equipment and put into operation the accelerator complex with the collider in its basic configuration, as well as have these milestones documented.
