The FAIR-CZ project under the leadership of the NPI continues successfully

28. 11. 2024

The involvement of the Czech Republic in the newly built FAIR accelerator laboratory in Germany is increasing. After a demanding mathematical modelling and verification of the seismic resistance requirement, a special support structure - a platform for a 100-tonne load - has been certified. This platform is part of the Compressed Baryonic Matter (CBM) hall.

The FAIR-CZ project has long been coordinated by the Nuclear Physics Institute of the CAS on behalf of the Ministry of Education. The Ministry of Education and the European Union also co-finance the FAIR-CZ project. The design of the special support structure – a platform was designed by scientists from the Czech Technical University in Prague.

The delivery and installation of the platform was part of the 2^nd investment phase of the EU-funded project. The ECAL detector was also delivered in the same phase and will be installed on the platform together with other equipment. In this detector, only the replacement of the old but fully functional photomultipliers in two sectors with the new type of photomultipliers installed in the other four sectors is to be completed.

The third phase, which has been running since the beginning of this year, involves the supply of equipment not only for the detectors but also for the heart of the laboratory – the accelerator itself. Specifically, the vacuum elements for the high energy beam transport (HEBT) line, the installations that transport particles from the accelerator to the individual measurement sites.

The partners of NPI in the FAIR-CZ project are the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of Charles University, Czech Technical University in Prague, Silesian University in Opava and Palacký University Olomouc.

Laboratory FAIR (Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research GmbH) will be a research infrastructure of pan-European importance and competence in the field of nuclear and hadron physics when it will be launched in 2028. In contrast to CERN, FAIR aims to focus on a different area of physics than phenomena associated with the Big Bang. FAIR will focus on phenomena that follow the Big Bang, such as the origin of the elements of the periodic table. This is physics that offers great potential for applications, e.g. in materials research. It is important for the Czech research community that one of the four research pillars of the laboratory, called APPA, is devoted only to applications.

The FAIR facility is being built near Darmstadt, Germany, adjacent to the German national laboratory GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung. Germany, Finland, France, India, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovenia and Sweden are involved in building the facility. The United Kingdom is an associate member; the Czech Republic has the status of aspirant country. The membership status is based on the financial share; the Czech Republic's share will reach 10% of one share once all deliveries have been made, with the Czech Republic being able to decide whether or not to increase its share within five years of the launch of FAIR. Such a decision, however, rests solely with the country's political leadership. The nuclear physics community would certainly welcome such an upgrade of the membership.

The FAIR-CZ project under the leadership of the NPI continues successfully

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