Dubna is preparing to simulate the collision of two neutron stars
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It will be held at the Nuclotron-NICA complex at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research
The collision of neutron stars is being prepared to be reproduced at the NICA accelerator in Dubna by graduate students of the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI. During the experiment, scientists will recreate conditions close to those that occur in space.
As MK was informed at the university, in an experiment to be held in September within the walls of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), one of the installations of the Nuclotron-NICA complex will bombard cesium nuclei with xenon nuclei at energies from 2.3 to 3.5 gigaelectronvolt. Thus, an event in the Universe (of course, on a reduced scale) will be recreated when two neutron stars collide.
Help “MK”. Neutron stars are astronomical objects with enormous pressure and density. The mass of a typical neutron star is comparable to the mass of the Sun with a diameter of 10-20 km.
By pushing the nuclei of cesium and xenon, scientists will be able to better understand the evolution of the universe.
According to the leading researcher of the Department of Condensed Matter Physics, Associate Professor Arkady Taranenko, it is neutron stars that are largely responsible for the appearance of heavy elements in nature, such as gold, lead and uranium. When modeling their collisions, at very high temperatures and energy densities, one can also study the process of transition of matter to states unusual for terrestrial conditions. For example, into the so-called hadron matter, and then into quark-gluon matter.
In nature, such matter is formed only during mergers of neutron stars or in the center of supernovae. These states have already been obtained on accelerators of various types. And in 2017, for the first time, scientists were able to detect signals from the collision of two real neutron stars by directly measuring gravitational waves (they were caused by this merger).
In this experiment, scientists want to explore the details of the phase transitions of matter from one state to another. Its results will complement the knowledge of modern astrophysicists.
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