The work carried out in the EURIZON project during its first and second periodic reporting covers a time span from February 2020 to January 2023.
Considering the enormous efforts for the reorganization of the project at all levels, after February 2022, the project implementation is well on track. The project consortium had to deal with the challenges of the COVID-pandemic during its first period, while during the second period had to respond to the dramatic challenges related to the Russian war against Ukraine, and the application of EU sanctions against Russia, and against Russian public entities.
In the area of the six technical work packages, the teams have achieved considerable progress:
In the area of heavy ions, a “mini CBM” (Compressed Baryonic Matter, one of the large experiments at FAIR) was setup, and several components were successfully tested, among them the data acquisition chain: a corresponding campaign with Oxygen beam at 2.0 AGeV was very successfully performed with, notably, a so far unachieved frequency of 1 MHz collision rates.
In the area of neutrons, the team has achieved a physical understanding of a low dimensional moderator (LDM) for neutron fluxes, including the LDM’s analytical description and the most promising shape of such LDM. Also, the conceptual design for a Cold Moderator Test Facility (CMTF) was developed, and its detailed engineering has been performed.
Regarding synchrotrons, a Conceptual Design Report (CDR) for a spectroscopy beamline including a detailed comparison of existing spectroscopy beamlines at 4th generation synchrotrons was completed.
The team working on “Lepton colliders” successfully shifted its work from a focus on developments for the Russian SCT detector project, towards the more general work for a high energy physics detector. One major achievement was the construction and testing of the detector prototypes for the cylindrical microRWELL detector.
In the area o high-power laser, progress was achieved in the development of advanced metrology of ultrashort laser beams, and the assembly of a prototype for spatio-temporal metrology of high-power femtosecond lasers was started. Training weeks on experimental laser-plasma physics have been conducted.
The “Detectors” team reshaped their task from developing a neutron detector for the PIK-reactor, to addressing the construction of a Multi-Grid detector for the neutron test beam facility at ESS. A “Detector School”, initially planned for Novosibirsk, was turned into a school relocated to a German university.
In the domain of non-technical WPs, a thorough reorganization of the programme was worked out and started: a “handbook on RI access” – dedicated originally to European scientists accessing Russian RIs – was turned into a more general handbook addressing structured access to RIs outside Europe. A set of newly designed coordination and support measures for sustaining science in Ukraine and for training Ukrainian RI managers was developed, and a group of Ukrainian RI managers were enrolled in the UNIMIB Master´s programme in RIs management. A substantial fellowship programme was designed, dedicated to support scientists in Ukraine through individual research grants.
