The Spin Physics Detector collaboration proposes to install a universal detector in the second interaction point of the NICA collider under construction (JINR, Dubna) to study the spin structure of the proton and deuteron and other spin-related phenomena using a unique possibility to operate with polarized proton and deuteron beams at a collision energy up to 27 GeV and a luminosity up to 10^32 cm^-2 s^-1. As the main goal, the experiment aims to provide access to the gluon TMD PDFs in the proton and deuteron, as well as the gluon transversity distribution and tensor PDFs in the deuteron, via the measurement of specific single and double spin asymmetries using different complementary probes such as charmonia, open charm, and prompt photon production processes. Other polarized and unpolarized physics is possible, especially at the first stage of NICA operation with reduced luminosity and collision energy of the proton and ion beams. This document is dedicated exclusively to technical issues of the SPD setup construction.

A regular monodisperse flow of spherical microtargets of solid hydrogen or deuterium with a variable diameter of several tens of micrometers and a frequency from several tens to several hundreds of kilohertz is in demand as internal targets in physical experiments at accelerators. The paper is devoted to the modification and launching of a prototype cryogenic corpuscular hydrogen target in which the gas entering the facility is transformed into a flow of spherical microtargets. Processes of cryogenic cooling and liquefaction of the gas, formation of a liquid microjet, and its controlled monodisperse disintegration into equal-sized drops are realized in the target, and they are followed by freezing of the drops and formation of microtargets upon injection into vacuum. The target prototype is composed of the cryogenic, vacuum, and gas systems as well as the systems for control and optical diagnostics of microtarget parameters. The modified target prototype provided monodisperse regimes of generation of microtargets with a diameter of 20–50 μm at a generation frequency of 260–465 kHz.

Sulfur is a substance with an abnormal dependence of viscosity on temperature. An experimental setup was created to study the viscosity of sulfur at pressures up to 100 bar and temperatures up to 500 °C. To visualize the process of falling of a tungsten carbide ball located in molten sulfur, the proton radiography method was used. The experiment was carried out on a PRIOR-II proton microscope (Institute for Heavy Ion Research, GSI, Darmstadt, Germany). In this experiment, the operating mode of the SIS-18 accelerator with slow beam extraction was used for the first time for proton radiography. The viscosity of the sulfur melt was measured at a pressure of 90 bar and temperatures of 190—320 °C. It has been shown that the viscosity of sulfur is greatly influenced by impurities, including hydrogen sulfide, which appears in the molten sulfur at high temperatures.

This work is devoted to the reconstruction of Z-pinch plasma emission spectra in the wavelength range of less than 10 Å recorded by using a crystal x-ray spectrograph at the Angara 5-1 mega-ampere facility. The spectrograph JA-1 used in experiments has a cylindrical mica crystal with dimensions of 50 × 40 mm2 and radius of curvature of 100 mm. Registration of spectra is performed on the photographic film UF-4 with dimensions of 30 × 10 mm2. To reconstruct the spectra, the previously developed method based on iterative approximation of a true spectrum shape while minimizing a residual between experimental and calculated spectrograms is used. The calculated spectrogram was obtained taking into account the instrumental function of the spectrograph. To define the instrumental function a virtual Monte-Carlo model in the Geant4 toolkit has been developed. This model takes into account the interaction of radiation with the mica crystal using dynamical theory of diffraction. A true spectrum of Z-pinch plasma radiation is reconstructed for a 16 mm high load made of two nested cylindrical wire liners. External liner with a diameter of 12 mm has 40 Al wires with a diameter of 18 μm. The internal liner with a diameter of 5 mm has 4 W wires with a diameter of 6 μm. The W wires have a sputtered layer of Re that is 0.5 μm thick.

As nuclear and particle physics facilities move to higher intensities, the detectors used there must be more radiation tolerant. Diamond is in use at many facilities due to its inherent radiation tolerance and ease of use. In this article we present our radiation tolerance measurements of the highest quality polycrystalline Chemical Vapor Deposition (pCVD) diamond material for irradiations from a range of proton energies, pions and neutrons up to a fluence of 2 x 10(16) particles/cm(2). We have measured the damage constant as a function of energy and particle species and compared it with theoretical models. We also present measurements of the rate dependence of pulse height for non-irradiated and irradiated pCVD diamond pad and pixel detectors, including detectors tested over a range of particle fluxes up to 20 MHz/cm(2) with both pad and pixel readout electronics. Our test beam results indicate a 2% upper limit to the pulse height dependence of unirradiated and neutron irradiated pCVD diamond detectors leading to the conclusion that the pulse height in pCVD diamond detectors is, at most, minimally dependent on the particle flux.

This work is devoted to the development of a method for the reconstruction of plasma extreme UV (EUV) spectra recorded by a three frame grazing incidence spectrograph (GIS-3D). The spectrograph provides registration of radiation reflected from the diffraction grating (DG) on a three-frame detector based on a microchannel plate with a scintillator screen and registration on a CCD camera, with an exposure time of one frame of ∼1.5 ns. DG has a gold-coated spherical concave form with a radius of curvature of 2 m and dimensions of 30 × 40 × 10 mm3. In this case, radiation is incident on the DG at a grazing angle of 2°; the DG period is 1.66 µm. The new single-pass method for the reconstruction of plasma EUV spectra was developed, which solves the inverse problem of decomposing experimental signals into separate contributions from each of the diffraction orders, followed by the reconstruction of the true plasma spectrum. Using the developed method, the possibility of finding a close approximation to the shape of a DG groove profile based on a priori information about the recorded spectra was demonstrated. In order to test and demonstrate the efficiency of this method, several experimental EUV spectra obtained at the Z-pinch facility Angara-5-1 with a current of ∼3-4 MA through loads made of either tungsten wires or polypropylene fibers were reconstructed. In addition, to test the single-pass method, the transmittance of EUV in cold aluminum was measured in the wavelength range of 3-35 nm, and it has a good match with the Henke database.

A technique for measuring the spatial heterogeneity of the light yield of a proton radiography scintillator has been developed. It is based on the recording of digital images formed during the passage of a proton beam through a scintillator and the approximation of the intensity distribution in the beam cross section by a two-dimensional Gaussian-like function. The results of the spatial calibration of the light yield of a lutetium silicate scintillator obtained using a magneto-optical proton microscope PUMA are presented. It is shown that accounting of the spatial heterogeneity of the scintillator makes it possible to describe the transverse beam intensity at each point of the proton radiographic image with a mean accuracy of about 0.7%. Experimental data on fluctuations in the position of the beam center, its size, and shape in the scintillator plane of PUMA microscope were obtained. The proposed technique eliminates optical artifacts in the radiographic image caused by operation of the optical recording system and artifacts caused by the electron-optical shutter, provided that the signal is proportional to the intensity of the beam. It also eliminates or strongly suppresses optical artifacts in radiographic images due to changes in the efficiency of a charge-coupled digital camera.

A method has been developed for calculating the proton beam transmission of static objects with a quasi-uniform areal density from a single proton radiography image under the condition of a Gaussian-like transverse beam profile. The calculated images of the transmission are intended to reconstruct the density of the investigated objects. A proton radiography of static targets was performed on an experimental setup with special magnetic optics PUMA with a proton energy of 800 MeV and an intensity of 1010 particles per image. It is shown that the application of the method makes it possible to reconstruct the proton beam transmission of the object under study with an average relative error of approximately 1–1.2

Information about charged particles emitted by plasma of high-current discharges is of interest both from the point of view of understanding the fundamental processes occurring in pulsed plasma and for applied problems. Compact magnetic spectrometers based on permanent magnets make it possible to measure the flux of charged particles from a plasma under conditions of strong electromagnetic noise. Imaging plates (IP) are one of the most commonly used types of detectors for detecting charged particles in laser-plasma and electric-discharge experiments. This paper presents the results of calibration of the BAS-MS IP when detecting electrons and the BAS-TR IP when detecting helium and tungsten ions. Calibration dependences of the sensitivity of the BAS-MS IP for electrons in the energy range of 0.65–50 MeV and the sensitivity of the BAS-TR IP for tungsten ions in the energy range from 20 eV to 650 keV are obtained, taking into account the angles of incidence of particles on the detector.

The upcoming experiments on heating targets using intense beams of heavy ions to be carried out within the scope of the FAIR (Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research) project require measuring the profile of the beam on the target to estimate the optimal energy uptake by materials exposed and to interpret accurately experimental results. We propose a method to diagnose the transverse distribution of intensity of ions through registering X-rays generated by the target as a result of the incident ion beam. The numerical code Geant4 is used to develop and design a full-scale experimental model to proceed with simulating X-ray diagnostics of the ion beam. The UNILAC accelerator (GSI, Germany) is used to validate the method proposed and compare it with the results of simulation. An Au +26 ion beam (energy of 11.4 MeV/a.m.u.) is passed through a copper target 10 μm thick. The X-ray image of the target is formed on a CsI scintillator using a pinhole camera. The image is recorded using a digital sCMOS camera having a brightness amplifier.

A digital model of a grazing-incidence X-ray spectrograph and methods for reconstruction of soft X-ray spectra of a Z-pinch plasma at the Angara-5-1 facility in the 2–40 nm range have been developed. The main problems hindering reliable qualitative and quantitative reconstruction of the initial Z-pinch X-ray spectra are the superposition of signals from different diffraction orders and the complex form of the device instrumental function. Two techniques for reconstructing the spectrum are presented. In the first one, a digital model of the spectrograph was developed in the Geant4 Monte Carlo simulation toolkit, taking into account the geometry of the experiment and the processes of interaction of X-ray radiation with a diffraction grating. In this model, taking into account the specific shape of the groove profile of the diffraction grating and the differential method for solving the diffraction problem, the X-ray intensity distribution in different diffraction orders depending on the wavelength is calculated. Using the developed model of the spectrograph, its instrumental function was calculated. The second technique does not use a specific grating groove shape, but, based on the analysis of calibration spectrograms, it constructs a dispersion relation and allows one to reconstruct the spectrum. At the end of the work, the results of reconstruction by the first and second techniques are compared and fairly good agreement between the spectra obtained by different techniques is shown.

The interaction of a heavy-ion beam with matter is a fundamental problem of plasma physics and high-energy density in matter physics. The paper presents the results of experimental studies of energy losses of Fe+2 ions with an energy of 100 keV/u in a hydrogen plasma. The experimental data of plasma free electron stopping power are compared with theoretical models.

Diamond is used as detector material in high energy physics experiments due to its inherent radiation tolerance. The RD42 collaboration has measured the radiation tolerance of chemical vapour deposition (CVD) diamond against proton, pion, and neutron irradiation. Results of this study are summarized in this article. The radiation tolerance of diamond detectors can be further enhanced by using a 3D electrode geometry. We present preliminary results of a poly-crystalline CVD (pCVD) diamond detector with a 3D electrode geometry after irradiation and compare to planar devices of roughly the same thickness.

In this work, the first proof of the principal of an in situ diagnostics of the heavy-ion beam intensity distribution in irradiation of solid targets is proposed. In this scheme, x-ray fluorescence that occurs in the interaction of heavy-ions with target atoms is used for imaging purposes. The x-ray conversion to optical radiation and a transport-system was developed, and its first test was performed in experiments at the Universal Linear Accelerator in Darmstadt, Germany. The Au-beam intensity distribution on thin foils and Cu-mesh targets was imaged using multiple x-ray pinholes (polychromatic imaging) and 2D monochromatic imaging of Cu Kα radiation by using a toroidally bent silicon crystal. The presented results are of importance for application in experiments on the investigation of the equation of states of high energy density matter using high intensity GeV/u heavy-ion beams of ≥1010 particles/100 ns.