Baksan Neutrino Observatory excursion. Baksan Neutrino Observatory. Baksan Neutrino Observatory
Date of: 27.04.2003
A LITTLE GEOGRAPHY
The Baksan Gorge is located in the west of Kabardino-Balkaria; climbing it takes several hours by bus. The Baksan River ("foamy water" either from Kabardian or from Balkar) flows from one of the Elbrus glaciers - Greater Azau and is an ordinary mountain stream, narrow, fast, rocky. The gorge is limited on one side by the Main Caucasian Range (along which the border with Georgia passes), on the other by the spurs of Elbrus. The Baksan Neutrino Observatory is located in this gorge at an altitude of approximately 1650 m above sea level. We settled in the village of Terskol, going up another 15 kilometers along the road, at an altitude of more than 2000 m. Up from us, about 4 kilometers, is only the Azau clearing (2300 m) at the foot of Elbrus with a cable car, down - the entire gorge: the Cheget clearing, where we lived last time and where there is another cable car, the village of Baidaevka, where we went to the waterfall, Tegenekli with the mountaineering and hunting museum named after Vysotsky, the village of Elbrus with the KBSU base, the village of Neutrino (guess what is there; )), village of Verkhniy Baksan. The nearest town is Tyrnyauz, where tungsten and molybdenum were once mined (and now everything is standing), regularly washed away by powerful mudflows, but quite beautiful in normal times, located 40 kilometers away.
I know that I know nothing...
The topics of the reports were as follows: theoretical models and experimental results on cosmology, supersymmetry, gravity and gravitational waves, black holes, dark matter, neutrino oscillations, solar neutrinos, cosmic rays (both ground-based and underground experiments), the GZK effect, projects of new detectors for all this. If some words are unclear, do not despair and look in the Dictionary, where I tried to explain the essence of the main scientific problems in this area in simple words.
The action was, naturally, in English, because the event was international: Japanese, Italians, Poles, and Belgians gathered. The bulk, of course, are Russians (oh, this Russian English! and the Japanese version is funny too) from our Institute of Nuclear Research. There were also “imported” Russians (CERN, USA, Israel).
At the same time, the so-called Youth School of Experimental and Theoretical Physics was held in Elbrus, already in Russian, organized by MEPhI, much less interesting. Ordinary students spoke at it, and I also spoke about the generation of secondary particles by cosmic ray muons. Things are quite elementary, but important (background for studying rare events) and little known. At this mythical school they already talked about everything related to physics. In short, an ordinary, somewhat boring conference.
I won’t say that I attended many reports, preferring walks in nature to a dark hall. I skipped almost the entire theoretical part, visiting only the experimental works, where there are fewer scary formulas and more beautiful pictures. But I still figured out something :)
BAKSAN NEUTRIN OBSERVATORY
An obligatory point of the event in the Baksan Gorge is an excursion to the BNO. Only in the USSR could they afford to dig several adits in the mountain purely for scientific research(there are only a few similar observatories in the world - in Italy (Gran Sasso), USA (Soudan, Homestake), Japan (Kamioka), Canada (Sudbury), but there they are located either in existing mines or in road tunnels). Just like two years ago, we were shown the BPST (Baksan Underground Scintillation Telescope) and SAGE (Soviet-American Gallium Experiment) - the installations are beautiful even in appearance. All impressions practically boil down to a poem about BNO two years ago (See Appendix 2), it’s clear why: such experiments last for years, or even decades (the 25th anniversary of BPST was just celebrated).
If you usually go to BPST on foot through a long, dark, wide tunnel, then to SAGE, located at a distance of more than 3 km from the entrance to the cave, there is a branch along which a two-car metro train runs. There is even a proud letter M above the entrance to the tunnel, reminiscent of the subway. big cities. Two years ago we were all on the train, it was a little cramped, but not scary. But this time there was not enough space in the metro for everyone, and I expressed a desire to ride on a locomotive powered by batteries, which are enough for about two trips there and back, together with the driver and saw the entire tunnel and numerous side adits for additional experiments planned. But the USSR collapsed, there was no money. It's a shame, because here we are still, if not ahead, then at least on an equal footing with the entire planet.
Surprisingly, mountains are everywhere here :) - everywhere you look. It seems that the peaks are nearby - half an hour of ascent and you are at the top. Ha! On the first day we climbed the mountain closest to us (Itkolbashi), climbed high, 400 meters :-/. Everyone was exhausted, out of breath, and the top was just over a kilometer away in height. But they walked through a meadow, not on snow, stones or a glacier (and there were no suitable shoes). The most fun was going back down: if you accelerate a little, you’ll remember their name. The Terskol river below is waiting for you (many smaller streams flow from the mountains to Baksan, some even have proper names). These meadows are pasture for sheep and bulls, even now, when there was no grass at all on the slopes, the herds still wandered and grazed something.
The weather here changes every 5 minutes - either wind and rain, then the sun will come out again. Clouds sometimes crawl very low, covering the lower part of the mountains, but you can still see the upper part.
On the second day, there were no reports in the morning, and we decided to give up skiing in Azau, fortunately, the hotel has rentals and a free bus. We were just lucky: for such lamers an instructor was found at a discounted price (usually 300 rubles per lesson, the course is at least a week, and they charged us the same money from the group), who not only put us on skis and showed us descent techniques, but even allowed us to go down for real: we went up one stage of the funicular (we would have gone higher, but we didn’t have enough time) to 3000 m and went down from there (which we are allowed to do no earlier than the 5th day, but we didn’t have that much time and money) .
We were very lucky with the weather that day: there was not a cloud in the sky, from the height you could see the entire Main Caucasus Range and Elbrus, as well as the gorge. A very picturesque panorama. How, I wonder, will the photographs reflect this? (The light meter was going through the roof!) It later turned out that this was the only day with such ideal weather during our stay here. We took our chance!
It was scary at the height; we could barely stand on our skis. But if you are not afraid of falling sometimes (and we are relaxing and do not set ourselves the goal of moving quickly and beautifully!), then everything is in order. The mood changed from “...Well, don’t drag yourself back to the funicular with these skis: -0” while we were 100-150 meters from it, through “How to go around these stones???” to "We did it!" You look up from where you just descended, lift your head, examine the stones, see how one of our people is tumbling there, and your self-esteem increases greatly: “I’m already down!” During the descent, I often fell (once I felt that my dark glasses were flying off, I immediately went blind, I fell, I plowed about 5 meters in the snow, I flew straight to my glasses, and for some reason my backpack with a camera was tightly tied so as not to dangle and interfere turns out to be put on over the head), but at the bottom it turned out to be the third one. How fast I had to move between falls! (Or did the others still fall no less than me?)
I got a lot of pleasure, but there hasn’t been a second time yet...
A few kilometers from Terskol there is a waterfall: an unnamed stream, before rushing into Baksan, cascades down the mountain. Why not go there, besides, along the way we will pass Narzan springs!
We walked slowly, stopping often and taking photographs of everything: roads, rivers, mountains, trees. The shooting conditions changed greatly: at aperture 16, the narrowest, I set shutter speeds almost chaotically throughout the entire range from 1/30 s to 1/500, and this was not always enough to satisfy the exposure meter’s recommendations. The sensitivity of the film, naturally, was 100. (I wonder what Slavik will get with his soap dish and 400? The man came up with the idea!)
The Narzanov Glade represents many springs of different salinity, with and without hydrogen sulfide. The most beautiful one is located a little to the side. Its power is such that a river of mineral water flows around! An interesting sight: water orange from excess iron, islands of green grass, white mountains in the background. Some narzans have a laxative effect, and by the evening I, having tried the largest number of varieties, had the opportunity to verify this. :(
A kilometer and a half later a waterfall appeared. We climbed along it as far as possible until we realized that we were quite wet from the spray and it would be unsafe to descend. The waterfall is formed from several steps. The height of the water fall from each is no more than 5-7 meters, but in total (and from afar) it turns out to be quite a beautiful sight. What’s interesting is that at the very bottom the water flows down, as it were, along terraces of 20-40 centimeters almost all the way to the road on the bank of Baksan. (In general, it is interesting that rock faults very often occur here at right angles and quite strictly parallel to each other, as can be seen on large stones and rock ledges). We still didn’t swim in the waterfall, although it might have been worth it. But to wash - washed; very pleasant water, fresh, cold and clear (tastes tasteless, almost distilled). I saw several birds playing in the stones (let's call them saxifrages), larger than a sparrow, quite well-fed, gray belly, almost black back, and wings - dark red, purple, and at the same time quite bright. But I haven’t seen emerald kingfishers, which love such rocky river riffles (maybe it’s not the season yet or they’re not found at such a height at all?).
We even found something like a cave: among the stones there was a hole going down, half a person could fit in there freely, but we didn’t experiment further. And some other yellow flowers perched directly on almost vertically steep (or even with a negative slope) slopes of stones, modestly, but in the absence of other vegetation... We found several shells - how did they end up here?
The way back was uphill, but we walked briskly (we returned home by lunchtime), stopping only at the Itkol camp site, where a herd of horses grazed peacefully, and there was even a small foal. They didn't notice us and didn't pose.
Cheget is famous for its market, where you can buy very cheap wool in any form: from roughly dressed hides and yarn to shaggy hats and sweaters made from sheep's wool. The market, although small, is similar to a classic oriental bazaar in terms of the level of pestering of sellers: “Look at my goods, guy, everything is your size.” You can also bargain, reducing the price by one and a half times (or even twice) is quite possible, although the starting prices are not very high.
There are also very tasty kebabs and homemade wine. There are several cafes, sometimes they offer mulled wine, but we were unlucky. :(Although, it’s probably better to drink it upstairs, when you’re completely frozen. We took several liters of wine with us. There’s still some, but it’ll run out soon;)
SNOWFALL
On the last day, it snowed so much in the morning that a power line broke somewhere below, and Terskol was left without light. The reports were all cancelled, it’s good that they gave us breakfast. There was so much snow that even the nearby mountains were not visible, the area turned into a plain, into an ordinary pine forest. And the snow immediately began to fall from the branches (especially if you kicked the trunk), which was very beautiful, but made me think of avalanches (we saw one of them when we were going to the airport. Fortunately, it came down on the other side of Baksan in a deserted place and didn’t block the road).
We made a snow woman (and almost looked like her ourselves). She was curvy, taller than a human, with apples for her eyes, a banana for her mouth, a nose made of snow and decorated with orange peel, and a hairstyle made of pine branches. The lady received the name Miss Wolfram (after the name of our hotel), and everyone immediately ran to take pictures hugging her. How much money could be earned! The foreigners were simply delighted and somewhat amazed: how can something be done in such cold, from such a cold substance as snow? We wanted to throw snowballs at them, but we took pity and started throwing them among ourselves.
The worst thing was then in the room: no light - no hot water and heating. Luckily, they started the backup generator and we were able to warm up. And the reports dragged on until the night due to constant power outages.
AFTERWORD
This is not all that we did there, just general features. Many small adventures and details will appear in oral stories when viewing photographs (with a glass of Caucasian wine;)). I’ll tell you a secret, I’ve already developed my films: there are some very remarkable shots on them!
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APPENDIX 1. GLOSSARY, or Particle physics for lyricists :) A NEUTRINO is a small light particle that weakly interacts with matter (it can pass right through the Earth without slowing down at all), which can have colossal energy, thereby carrying information from the very depths of the Universe. COSMOLOGY is the science of the very beginning of our Universe and its development. According to most modern models, at the beginning of the Universe there was Big Bang(but no one can say for sure what it really is), and then during cooling (and simultaneous expansion) all the particles (and light too) were born. Over time, these particles began to combine, forming atoms, molecules, gas clouds, from which galaxies, stars, and planets were born. And the Universe swollen to the enormous size it is now. SUPERSYMMETRY is a theory that appeared in connection with the problem of dark matter: each known particle (particle) corresponds to a supersymmetric partner (sparticle), from among which suitable candidates for dark matter can be found. New interactions may appear at very small distances (much smaller than the size of the nucleus). Closely related to this are the theories of the GREAT UNIFICATION (GUT): all known interactions are partial manifestations of one interaction. This interaction can be seen directly at very high energies. One of the manifestations of this should be the decay of a free proton, just as a free neutron decays. A BLACK HOLE is a region of space-time from which nothing, not even light, can escape. DARK MATTER - There are indications that we see at most 10% of all matter. Where did the rest go? The remaining, invisible part is called black matter. These could be black holes, the same neutrinos, not yet discovered supersymmetric particles, and who knows what else? GRAVITY is an attraction known since the time of Newton. Einstein explained gravity as the curvature of space-time, obtaining a relativistic theory (at speeds close to the speed of light). The problem is that there is no theory of quantum gravity and it is unclear how this interaction will behave at large distances (on the order of intergalactic distances and more) and how gravity can be included in GUT. GRAVITATIONAL WAVES - like the electromagnetic interaction, the effect of gravity extends to infinity. Since they exist electromagnetic waves(radio, light, x-rays and gamma rays), why not be gravitational? However, they are so weak, so easily lost against the background of Earth vibrations, also associated with human activity, that very heavy detectors are needed (usually aluminum cylinders several meters in size), which are available in the USA and Italy; there is a project to build a similar thing on Baksan. But it has not yet been possible to detect these waves, despite the fact that there have been some statements about this. NEUTRINO OSCILLATIONS - there are three types of neutrinos and, apparently, they can transform into each other and carry out oscillations (oscillations) from one state to another. The hypothesis arose in connection with the shortage of SOLAR NEUTRINOS: according to the standard Solar model, which describes processes inside the Sun well, the number of neutrinos coming from the Sun should be 2 times greater than observed. But we can only observe electron neutrinos well, so maybe along the way they just transform into other states that we detect much worse? SAGE is an experiment to search for neutrinos from the Sun. Based on nuclear reaction, when gallium, having interacted with neutrinos, transforms into germanium. A very beautiful experiment (there are only 2 installations in the world: SAGE and the Italian GNO), which gives exactly that very lack. GZK EFFECT, GZK CUTOFF (Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin; I know the last two personally) - theoretically it turns out that above a certain energy, particles from Space (cosmic rays) cannot reach us. However, some people claim to constantly observe such high-energy (that's how the adjective is formed!) particles. Experimental error or new physics? SCINTILLATOR - a substance (in BPST and “my” LVD - based on paraffin) that can glow when charged particles (and not only) enter it. The light is collected by photomultipliers, then, if you try, you can determine the type and energy of the transmitted particle. Experiments of this kind are carried out deep underground in order to reduce the background from processes taking place in the atmosphere. Ground-based experiments to study extensive air showers (a particle, interacting with air nuclei, is capable of giving birth to a bunch of other particles, which can also interact, etc., and a wide air shower is obtained), the so-called EAS array detectors, are also quite important, especially with simultaneous underground surveillance. CERN (European Center for Nuclear Physics) is an accelerator complex on the border of Switzerland and France (Geneva), where the largest accelerator in the world is being built this moment, with which the discovery of many particles is associated. There is an experimental project to create a special beam of neutrinos, which will be caught in Italy at a distance of more than 700 km to check whether there are oscillations. |
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APPENDIX 2. Baksan Neutrino Observatory Physicists' village Neutrino Everything is dedicated to a single goal: And this makes him far from the world, Underground god - installation - The tunnel leads up somewhere, What serve the main purpose for a long time: Knows many glorious discoveries Parody: subway cars The air supply is plentiful, Germanium, gallium, liters, tons, Events happen suddenly And today admission is only free, I realized: there is a smell of mystery nearby, |  |
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| 21.04.2001
BNO, dungeon | |
© 2007-2019 - Vadim Boyarkin, text; Vadim Boyarkin, Yulia Nakhimova, photo.
“Neutrino” is an ultra-light elementary particle that almost does not interact with matter. The fact that it exists was proven in the 50s of the 20th century. In the 60s soviet government decided to build a special neutrino observatory in the Baksan Gorge. The location was not chosen by chance. In a "cocktail" of hundreds of other types elementary particles The neutrino is simply not visible: to detect it, you need a filter. The Andyrchi basalt mountain became just such a filter. Below it, at a depth of about 2 km, is a laboratory.
Getting to the place where neutrinos are caught is not easy. First you need to go to Nalchik, and from there it’s another 80 km, or to Mineralnye Vody, and then another 160 km. On the way, every now and then there are anti-terrorist police posts, and reliable security is posted at the entrance to the institute: once there was already an attempt to attack the laboratory.
The very last stage of the journey is a narrow adit, 4 km long, along which something like a cross between miner's trolleys and a children's train rides. The tunnels and premises in Mount Andyrchi were cut by detachments of metro workers from Baku and Minsk - hence the letter “M” at the entrance.
A 20-minute drive in almost complete darkness under layers of basalt - and the train stops in front of blind gates. They ensure the safety of laboratories.
Before entering the laboratory, everyone must change their clothes and shoes so that they do not bring isotopes from the surface of the earth with dirt and dust on their shoes and clothes. cosmic origin: they affect background radiation. “It is suppressed here by 15-20 times compared to ordinary rooms due to special low-background concrete,” explains Alexander Shikhin, a researcher at the Baksan Neutrino Observatory. “The concrete here is about 70 cm-meter.”
Solar neutrinos are caught by an ultrasensitive gallium-germanium neutrino telescope. With its help, scientists are trying to understand what kind of processes occur on the Sun, how it shines and heats.
“Telescope is a very conventional name; in fact, it is a chemical detector,” says Shikhin.
Gallium is a light metal that melts right in your hands as soon as the temperature exceeds 30 degrees Celsius. It is he who interacts best with neutrinos. About 50 tons of gallium are stored in huge sealed Teflon barrels in the laboratory, with the help of which only a few dozen particles will probably be extracted.
“Through every square centimeter on the surface, even through my fingernail, every second about 70 billion neutrinos, which originated on the Sun, pass through. But the number of interacting ones can be one - in my entire life,” the scientist notes.
“In 1977-79, in my opinion, the first event was: a neutrino coming from below,” recalls Valery Kuzminov, head of the Baksan Neutrino Observatory. “It was a delight! Everything we were striving for!”
Chemist Olga Zhorova explains the technology of “searching” for particles:
With the help of complex chemical reactions 50 tons of liquid metal are first turned into one and a half hundred liters of extract, then into two liters, and then into a glass of a clear solution. It is poured into a special glass installation, where the solution undergoes multi-stage purification from impurities using freezing in various traps, using liquid nitrogen, heating on titanium, iron, and carbon shavings. “And only then does it fall into various traps and end up in the highly clean vacuum part of the installation,” she lists.
The output is only half a cubic centimeter of germanium gas, which contains only 5-6 atoms left after the decay with traces of neutrinos. This material will be locked in a massive counter cube for many months to obtain fresh information from the very center of the Sun.
“This is a multilayer structure made of various low-background metals: a few cm of steel, 20 cm of lead, another 10 cm of copper, and there is still internal active protection inside,” Zhorova lists. “All this protects the meters from radioactivity, including the one we have "We ourselves. And within this passive and active protection, over the course of three months, the single decays of germanium-71, which was formed in the radiochemical detector during the exposure, are counted."
The largest room of the laboratory is the hall of the Large Scintillation Telescope, the size of a four-story building. It is lined from top to bottom with special particle detectors.
“There are approximately 3200 detectors, measuring 70 by 70 and by 30. They are made of aluminum, covered inside with white enamel and filled with purified C9H20 kerosene,” says Evgeny Martakov, engineer of the Large Underground Scintillation Telescope. According to him, scintillators are dissolved in kerosene - substances capable of converting the energy of particles into light. Special devices in black cylinders - photomultipliers. They read light signals and transmit them to recording computers. This is how scientists see the movement of particles in real time.
There is another telescope nearby, also the size of a house. It detects more powerful neutrinos, muons, which fly towards the Earth from deep space. Thanks to this telescope, almost 30 years ago, a supernova explosion was recorded in the Magellanic Cloud - more than 160 thousand light years from us.
“When a star explodes, we see it as if it were day!” – says Evgeny Martakov.
Another laboratory was opened later than the others, when Soviet Union has already broken up. Here they are looking for solar hadron axions, a particle whose existence theoretical physicists are still only guessing at.
Now, in the bowels of the laboratory, a facility is being installed for the BEST experiment, one of the most anticipated events in particle physics. With the help of this experiment, scientists are going to either prove or disprove the hypothesis of the existence of so-called “sterile” neutrinos, which have a significantly larger mass and even less interaction with matter. Perhaps this will help to understand nature dark matter and, perhaps, will bring scientists a Nobel Prize.
"If the result is negative, of course, we will not receive any bonus, but it will be good scientific result“: it turns out that there is no such process, you don’t have to go there anymore,” says Valery Kuzminov, head of the Baksan Neutrino Observatory. “You won’t know what you have, whether there is treasure there, until you dig it up?”
The Baksan Observatory has long been of interest to fellow scientists from other fields of science: where else can you find rooms so cleared of radiation or such deep caves under the mountain? Biologists studied here the effect of radon gas on the body, and geophysicists asked to place their equipment in the very heart of the mountain. also in Soviet times American nuclear physicists from Los Alamos regularly visited the Baksan Gorge, conducted joint experiments, shared experience and knowledge. But today the intensity of cooperation has noticeably decreased.
The head of the laboratory complains that for the current Russian authorities Basic science is also not a priority.
“Now the country, the state, the government is not ready to deal with such tasks, as I understand it. Priorities changed about a decade ago, when our international situation began to deteriorate sharply. Well, in general, capitalists do not need this, capitalists do not need fundamental science,” with Valery Kuzminov admits bitterly.
BNO is an underground physical observatory for the study of neutrinos, located in two 3670 m long tunnels under Mount Andyrchi in the Caucasus. Belongs to the Institute of Nuclear Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It was built first by Moscow metro builders, and then by workers from Baku and Donetsk, and was put into operation in, it seems, 1978.
The main adit of the facility. 
The lining is leaking in one place. 
If you go to the right, you will see the Baksan underground scintillation telescope; if you go straight, you will find a gallium-germanium neutrino telescope, and maybe you will get pussy:) We will go to the right. 
Let's walk along the walk and look around. 
One of the vertical scintillation planes. 
Plane detectors.
This design (underground scintillation telescope) works approximately as follows: from large number The detectors are made up of a parallelepiped with a volume of 3000 m³. Detectors detect the passage of high-energy particles, electron neutrinos and muons, and analysis of signals from the detectors allows one to judge the trajectories of particles. By detecting muons from the lower hemisphere of the Earth and at large zenith angles, it is possible to get rid of the background of atmospheric muons and have pure neutrino events. The detector records the passage of 17 muons every second, and neutrino events occur several times a year. The depth is about 300 meters.
The detector is a metal tank 70x70x30 cm filled with white spirit, to which a scintillator (causes the substance to glow when particles pass) and a shifter (shifts the wavelength) are added. A photomultiplier (electron tube) is attached to the tank through a special glass, reacting to flashes of light and sending the measurement results to the computer center. The scintillation telescope operates in real time, i.e. On your computer in the CC you can see what each of the sensors shows and what is happening in general. This is so rude general outline, a description of the telescope’s operation; if there is anything wrong, the experts will correct it. 
The bottom plane of the telescope... 
...and its connection with one of the vertical planes. 
The upper plane is 4 floors higher. 
...
Sensor. 
Disassembled sensor: inside is an electronic tube. 
And here is the stock of these lamps. 
Upper plane. 
CC and main computer, which replaced a dozen cabinets with relays. 
Free space, as I understand it. 
Glory to Soviet science! 
Central hall, rescuers. 
Control room.
The underground part consists of two parallel adits (main and service with a narrow-gauge railway) with a monolithic lining, technical premises between them, working out large sections (in metal insulation) for telescopes. 
...
Battery bucket. 
Lamp protection.
The facility also has a gallium-germanium neutrino telescope - a radiochemical detector of solar neutrinos with a metal gallium target weighing 60 tons (located at a distance of 3.5 km from the entrance to the tunnel, a depth of about 800 meters. Liquid gallium under the influence of neutrinos turns into radioactive germanium, inspection and study of the target is carried out once every 1.5 years), a low-background camera, the Andyrchi installation for recording extensive atmospheric showers located on the surface of the mountain, a complex of ground-based installations Carpet. 
The main adit. 
The main adit. 
Auxiliary adit. Greetings from Metrostroy 
Caravan. Doesn't remind you of anything? :) 
In the spring of 2006, an avalanche occurred right above the BNO portals, filled up the entrances and destroyed half of the territory. There were some buildings at this place. 
A stone brought by an avalanche. 
A slope with fallen trees in the background is the result of an avalanche. 
And something has already been abandoned for a long time. 
The bridge over the Baksan river is the only way to BNO.
(c) danila85
Towards the end at the 25th minute, reporters began to talk about a certain laboratory to which a 4-kilometer tunnel leads, in which the Baksan Neutrino Laboratory is located
As usual, the journalists lied. Here's what we managed to find about her:
“Construction began in 1967. The project involved the construction of two parallel horizontal tunnels in Mount Andyrchi (height more than 4000 m), along which it was planned to place physical installations. The underground location of the installations is due to the fact that the background from cosmic rays (muon flux) decreases along as they go deeper underground and at the end of the tunnel is almost 107 times lower than on the surface. The implementation of these plans was the creation of the Baksan Neutrino Observatory. A. A. Pomansky was appointed the first head of the station. The place for the future observatory was chosen not far from Mount Elbrus, in Baksan Gorge, located in the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic. Since 2003, an experiment has been carried out at the Carpet-2 installation to detect the hadronic component of EAS using a unique technique. As part of the experiment, during the analysis of experimental data, a new physical phenomenon, located at the intersection of nuclear physics and geophysics - radon-neutron tidal waves. The Observatory's research program expanded as new above-ground and underground structures were put into operation. In the process of development, a complex of unique scientific structures arose at the BNO, meeting all modern requirements.
The creation of a complex of scientific installations allowed: - to begin direct research internal structure and the evolution of the Sun, stars, the galactic core and other objects of the Universe by recording their neutrino and gamma radiation;
- to search for new particles and ultra-rare processes predicted by modern theories of elementary particles at a level of sensitivity inaccessible to other methods;
In 1998, for the creation of the BNO scientific complex, a team of employees of the Institute and the Observatory was awarded the State Prize Russian Federation, in 2001, for achievements in the field of research of neutrino flux from the Sun, the International Prize named after. B. M. Pontecorvo.
- to study the interactions of neutrinos and muons with matter in the region of high and ultra-high energies that lie beyond the capabilities of accelerator technology.
The main directions of scientific research of the BNO are:
-particle physics, high energy physics, cosmology;
-neutrino astrophysics, neutrino and g-astronomy, cosmic ray physics, the problem of solar neutrinos;
-development and creation of neutrino telescopes in low-background underground laboratories for studying natural flows of neutrinos and other elementary particles;
-double beta decay;
Applied research includes:
-search for dark matter.
-checking the radiation purity of various natural and artificial materials, for example, raw materials for the production of scintillation single crystals;
-control of the natural environment;
Currently the Observatory has 29 staff members researchers, actively leading scientific work(2 doctors and 14 candidates of physical and mathematical sciences).
-study of the radioisotope composition of lunar soil delivered by the automatic stations “Luna-16” and “Luna-20”, etc.
The Observatory includes the following scientific units: -Baksan underground scintillation telescope;
- “CARPET” - installation for recording widespread atmospheric showers;
- "CARPET-2" is a complex installation for recording widespread atmospheric showers.
- "ANDYRCHI" - a mountain installation for recording widespread atmospheric showers;
- gallium-germanium neutrino telescope;
- low-background laboratory No. 1;
- low-background laboratory No. 2;
This place. This time, we were much better prepared and no longer ran all over the territory in search of an entrenching tool :)
BNO is an underground physical observatory for the study of neutrinos, located in two 3670 m long tunnels under Mount Andyrchi in the Caucasus. Belongs to the Institute of Nuclear Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It was built first by Moscow metro builders, and then by workers from Baku and Donetsk, and was put into operation in, it seems, 1978.
The main adit of the facility.
The lining is leaking in one place.
If you go to the right, you’ll see the Baksan underground scintillation telescope; if you go straight, you’ll find a gallium-germanium neutrino telescope, and maybe you’ll get some pussy:)
We'll go right.
Let's walk along the walk and look around.
One of the vertical scintillation planes.
Plane detectors.
This design (an underground scintillation telescope) works approximately as follows: a parallelepiped with a volume of 3000 m³ is composed of a large number of detectors. Detectors detect the passage of high-energy particles, electron neutrinos and muons, and analysis of signals from the detectors allows one to judge the trajectories of particles. By detecting muons from the lower hemisphere of the Earth and at large zenith angles, it is possible to get rid of the background of atmospheric muons and have pure neutrino events. The detector records the passage of 17 muons every second, and neutrino events occur several times a year. The depth is about 300 meters.
The detector is a metal tank 70x70x30 cm filled with white spirit, to which a scintillator (causes the substance to glow when particles pass) and a shifter (shifts the wavelength) are added. A photomultiplier (electron tube) is attached to the tank through a special glass, reacting to flashes of light and sending the measurement results to the computer center. The scintillation telescope operates in real time, i.e. On your computer in the CC you can see what each of the sensors shows and what is happening in general. This is such a rough, in general terms, description of the operation of the telescope, if there is anything, experts will correct it.
The bottom plane of the telescope...
...and its connection with one of the vertical planes.
The upper plane is 4 floors higher.
...
Sensor.
Disassembled sensor: inside is an electronic tube.
And here is the stock of these lamps.
Upper plane.
CC and main computer, which replaced a dozen cabinets with relays.
Free space, as I understand it.
Glory to Soviet science!
Central hall, rescuers.
Control room.
The underground part consists of two parallel adits (main and service with a narrow-gauge railway) with a monolithic lining, technical premises between them, working out large sections (in metal insulation) for telescopes.
...
Battery bucket.
Lamp protection.
The facility also has a gallium-germanium neutrino telescope - a radiochemical detector of solar neutrinos with a metal gallium target weighing 60 tons (located at a distance of 3.5 km from the entrance to the tunnel, a depth of about 800 meters. Liquid gallium under the influence of neutrinos turns into radioactive germanium, inspection and study of the target is carried out once every 1.5 years), a low-background camera, the Andyrchi installation for recording extensive atmospheric showers located on the surface of the mountain, a complex of ground-based installations Carpet.
The main adit.
The main adit.
Auxiliary adit. Greetings from Metrostroy
Caravan. Doesn't remind you of anything? :)
In the spring of 2006, an avalanche occurred right above the BNO portals, filled up the entrances and destroyed half of the territory. There were some buildings at this place.
A stone brought by an avalanche.
A slope with fallen trees in the background is the result of an avalanche.
And something has already been abandoned for a long time.
The bridge over the Baksan River is perhaps now the only way to BNO.
