Topical Problems of Beam Dynamics in the NICA Collider

• Published in: Physics of particles and nuclei 2022-10, Vol.53 (5), p.1021-1049
• Main Authors: Kozlov, O. S., Kostromin, S. A., Melnikov, S. A., Meshkov, I. N., Smirnov, V. L., Tuzikov, A. V., Filippov, A. V., Shandov, M. M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Particle and Nuclear Physics; Physics; Physics and Astronomy
• ISSN: 1063-7796; 1531-8559
• DOI: 10.1134/S1063779622050057

— The NICA project is under development at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (Dubna, Russia). The accelerator complex is at the stage of step-wise assembly and commissioning. The facility is created for solution of fundamental problems in the field of the quark–gluon plasma and a number of applied experiments; it consists of two superconducting synchrotrons and a superconducting collider. Two linear accelerators play the role of injectors; particles from protons to heavy highly ionized ions are produced by ion sources. The main stage of the project will be commissioning of the Collider. Multiple studies of the beam dynamics at the design stage were the basis of design development of the Collider systems: the accelerator lattice, and the beam correction and control. The choice of its operation parameters is based on numerical calculation of movement of charged particles in the Collider rings, which were multiply performed by different groups of researchers using various methods, algorithms, and simulation codes. Some tasks still remain topical. Some of them are fundamental, and directly affect the understanding of the beam motion in the facility and require thorough study using three-dimensional particle tracking taking account of all the main physical phenomena in beams and nonlinearities in the system. In the NICA, such problems are collective effects, which are mainly the subject of this work. The motion of ions is considered, taking into account the action of space charge of the beam, intrabeam scattering, effects of interacting beams, and the electron cooling system. The problem of the interaction of the circulating beam with beam elements of the Collider and the effect of electron clouds are discussed. The first results of numerical calculations with three-dimensional particle tracking codes are presented. The paper describes the current state of numerical and theoretical calculations of the beam stability in NICA and the plans for solution of the uncompleted tasks.