The NICA Accelerator Complex reached an important milestone. On the night of 12 February 2026, during the commissioning, simultaneous circulation of counter-rotating beams of xenon nuclei in the collider rings was achieved for the first time.

The two-beam mode was a result of the successful work with single beams injected into the upper or lower ring, carried out as part of the ongoing technical run, and their stable circulation for tens of minutes in each.

At this stage, specialists from the the Laboratory of High Energy Physics at JINR sequentially injected xenon nuclei into the upper and lower rings. The same frequency of particle bunches in each of the rings was ensured, and their passage through each other was synchronised at the interaction point in the area of the Multi-Purpose Detector. Achieving the colliding beam circulation mode indicates the correct and synchronous operation of the most intricate engineering systems of the entire complex.

This achievement paves the way for specialists to obtain the design parameters of collisions and confirms that the characteristics of all major collider systems comply with technical requirements. Physicists and engineers are moving on to the next stage, required to start physics experiments. Plans include precise measurement and correction of the rings’ magnetic optics, increasing beam intensity, and, finally, recording the first results of particle bunch collisions at the interaction point using the MPD.