News & Media
On December 17, 2024,
Grigory Vladimirovich Domogatsky
passed away unexpectedly at the age of 84
Grigory Vladimirovich was a man of a brilliant mind, persistent nature and invincible will. He was a great scientist and a talented science administrator whose optimism, sincere and genuine interest in science were a constant source of inspiration for many scientists in Russia and abroad.
Innovation, foresight, integrity, consistency and impartiality of scientific conclusions were always inherent to him. The development of new promising areas of modern underground and deep-underwater physics are justly associated with the name of Grigory Vladimirovich Domogatsky and his long-standing activities in research, administration and science.
Thanks to the knowledge, experience and personal qualities of Grigory Vladimirovich and under his guidance, new methods for deep-underwater detection of elementary particles were successfully developed, as well as a unique large-scale scientific facility was designed and constructed, the first-ever deep-underwater detector of muons and neutrinos in Lake Baikal.
Back in 1980, Grigory Vladimirovich started his work on this project on the proposal of the academicians M. A. Markov and A. E. Chudakov and demonstrated outstanding qualities: the ability to inspire colleagues, a systematic, principled and deep approach to solving scientific, technical and organizational problems, as well as incredible resilience and perseverance in achieving goals. These qualities allowed him to start the construction and to complete the world’s first deep-underwater neutrino telescope NT-200, and this in hard for our country times. For decades, he personally supervised work on ice during winter expeditions, as well as preparations made for the experiment throughout the year.
A new stage of the Baikal neutrino experiment began in 2014–2015, with the launch of construction of the Baikal-GVD (Gigaton Volume Detector), the neutrino telescope of a one-cubic-km scale, whose abbreviation was attributed by colleagues to the initials of Grigory Vladimirovich Domogatsky! What was a daring dream more than forty years ago has become a reality in the form of the largest neutrino telescope in the Northern Hemisphere solving problems at the cutting edge of science.
Grigory Vladimirovich guided this grandiose project until the last days of his life. His death is an irretrievable loss for the international collaboration Baikal-GVD and for world science in general. We will do everything possible to ensure that the life’s work of the exceptional scientist continues to evolve and to bring impressive scientific discoveries.
17 декабря 2024г на 84-ом году скоропостижно ушел из жизни
Григорий Владимирович Домогацкий
Григорий Владимирович человек блестящего ума, стойкого характера и несгибаемой воли. Великий ученый и талантливый организатор науки, оптимизм, искренний и глубокий интерес к научным задачам которого были сильнейшим источником вдохновения для многих ученых в России и за рубежом.
В науке ему всегда были свойственны новаторство, предвидение, принципиальность и последовательность, объективность научных выводов. С именем Г. В. Домогацкого, с его многолетней исследовательской, организаторской и научной деятельностью по праву связывают развитие новых, перспективных областей современной подземной и глубоководной физики.
Благодаря знанию, опыту и личным качествам Григория Владимировича и под его непосредственным руководством была успешно проведена разработка новых методов глубоководной регистрации элементарных частиц, создана и развита уникальная крупномасштабная научно-исследовательская установка – первый в мире глубоководный детектор мюонов и нейтрино на озере Байкал.
Начав свою работу над этим проектом еще в 1980 году по предложению академиков М. А. Маркова и А. Е. Чудакова, Григорий Владимирович проявил выдающиеся качества: способность вдохновлять коллег, систематичность, принципиальность и глубину подхода к решению научных, технических и организационных вопросов, а также невероятную стойкость и настойчивость в достижении цели. Именно эти качества позволили в тяжелое для страны время начать строительство и завершить создание первого в мире глубоководного нейтринного телескопа НТ-200. На протяжении десятилетий он лично руководил экспедиционными работами на льду и подготовкой эксперимента в течение всего года.
Новый этап развития Байкальского нейтринного эксперимента начался в 2014–2015 годах с началом работ по созданию нейтринного телескопа кубокилометрового масштаба Baikal–GVD (Gigaton Volume Detector), название которого коллеги с уважением и теплотой связывают с его именем – Григорий Владимирович Домогацкий! То, что являлось дерзкой мечтой более сорока лет назад, стало реальностью в виде крупнейшего нейтринного телескопа Северного полушария, решающего задачи на переднем фронте научных исследований.
Григорий Владимирович руководил этим грандиозным проектом до последних дней своей жизни. Его уход – невосполнимая утрата для международной коллаборации Baikal–GVD и мировой науки в целом. Мы сделаем все возможное, чтобы дело жизни выдающегося ученого продолжало развиваться и приносить новые научные открытия.
We congratulate Batzhargal Ulzutuev on the successful defence of his master thesis “Measuring the atmospheric muon flux with the Baikal-GVD Neutrino Telescope”! We wish him every continued success and new scientific achievements!
Summarizing the Results of the Baikal-GVD Collaboration Meeting
From 30 May to 2 June 2023, the workshop of the international Baikal-GVD Collaboration took place at the Experimental Department of Nuclear Spectroscopy and Radiochemistry of the Dzhelepov Laboratory of Nuclear Problems of JINR. This year, it was held in a hybrid format—about 50 scientists attended the workshop in person, above 20 specialists participated remotely.
The international Baikal-GVD Collaboration embraces physicists, engineers, programmers, and technicians involved in the construction of the Baikal Deep Underwater Neutrino Telescope, a state-of-the-art facility for answering basic questions and tackling complex problems in particle physics, astrophysics, and multimessenger astronomy.
At the meeting, the 2023 Baikal Winter Expedition was summed up—two new clusters and one experimental string are installed, faulty equipment repaired.
The detector status, features of data processing of this season, results of high-energy event selection of the last season were discussed.
A special section was devoted to the Monte Carlo simulations of background and signal events and also to the related activities performed during the last half of the year.
Also, some reports were given on improvements in the efficiency of track-like event reconstruction, optimization of high-energy neutrino event selection, changes in the automatic system of tracking and creating alerts, and on prospects for using machine learning in data processing.
In the final talk, preliminary plans on deploying the facility in 2024 were outlined.
Winter Expedition 2023 to Construct the Baikal-GVD Deep Underwater Neutrino Telescope Completed
During the 2023 Winter Expedition, the Baikal-GVD Collaboration installed two new telescope clusters, repaired and updated previously mounted detector elements and proceeded with developing the data transmission system inside the facility via optical cables.
The Baikal-GVD Neutrino Telescope is aimed at detecting and investigating ultrahigh-energy neutrino fluxes from astrophysical sources. Scientists are going to study not only processes with huge energy emission from the distant past but also galaxy evolution, supermassive black hole formation and particle acceleration mechanisms.
The Baikal Neutrino Telescope is a neutrino detector located in Lake Baikal 3.6 km offshore at a depth of about 1300 m. This unique scientific facility is an important tool of multimessenger astronomy, a new powerful method for investigating the Universe. Baikal-GVD is one of the three operating neutrino telescopes across the globe and is a constituent of the Global Neutrino Network (GNN), along with IceCube at the South Pole and KM3NeT in the Mediterranean Sea.
The Baikal-GVD Telescope is the largest in the Northern Hemisphere and the second by size in the world. To date, 12 clusters, spaced 250 to 300 m from each other, are put into operation. Since 8 April 2023, they have been taking data. Each cluster is an individual detector of 8 vertical strings with optical modules along them (36 items on each string). At present, the telescope comprises about 3500 photodetectors. By 2027, the facility volume is scheduled to be about one cubic kilometre.
“The 2023 season turned out to be a strength test to the expedition team. The weather made the challenge even tougher, but at the same time, it provided us with the thick and safe ice sheet until the activities on the ice were finished. Despite these conditions, the systematic changes both in preparing the equipment and in deploying the facility were made. I would like to mention the increased expertise of the team—a forced restructuring did not impede the fulfilment of previously scheduled tasks,” remarks Igor Anatolevich Belolaptikov, the head of expedition activities, head of the facility of the Dzhelepov Laboratory of Nuclear Problems of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research.
“A planned step on ramping up the effective volume of the detector was successfully made. To implement the initial project on constructing the high-energy neutrino detector with an effective volume of about one cubic kilometre, two or three steps are left. The outlines of further development of the detector on the basis of the fibre-optical data-acquisition system start showing up,” says Grigory Vladimirovich Domogatsky, the Baikal-GVD Collaboration head, corresponding member of RAS, the head of the Laboratory of High-Energy Neutrino Astrophysics of the Institute for Nuclear Research of RAS.
The Baikal-GVD Neutrino Telescope is being constructed by concerted efforts of the international collaboration with the leading role of the Institute for Nuclear Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences (INR of RAS, Moscow), the founder of this experiment and the direction “high-energy neutrino astronomy” in the world, and of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR, Dubna). Above 70 scientists and engineers from nine research centres of Russia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Kazakhstan participate in the project.
The 2023 expedition was organized by the Institute for Nuclear Research of RAS (Moscow) and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (Dubna).
2020 Winter Baikal-GVD Collaboration Meeting
From 6th to 9th of December 2022, the first in-person meeting of the international Baikal-GVD Collaboration was held at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. Over four days, more than 55 participants of the Collaboration (including those who could not attend in person and participated via Zoom) discussed the current state of the telescope, preparations for the next winter expedition, the operation of the data-collection and processing system and event reconstruction algorithms. The reports covered all topics of the Baikal-GVD experiment from the latest results of measuring the isotropic flux of astrophysical neutrinos to the further plans of the facility development.
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