Joint Institute for Nuclear Research

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Headquarters of Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna

The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, JINR (Russian: Объединённый институт ядерных исследований, ОИЯИ) in Dubna, Moscow Oblast (120 km north of Moscow), Russia is an international research centre for nuclear sciences, involving around 1000 scientists from eighteen states (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Cuba, Czech Republic, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Mongolia, North Korea, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam) as well as some eminent and well-known scientists from UNESCO, CERN, CLAF, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States.

Currently the Institute has seven laboratories, each with its own specialisation: theoretical physics, high energy physics (particle physics), heavy ion physics, condensed matter physics, nuclear reactions, neutron physics, and information technology. The institute also has a division to study radiation and radiobiological research and other ad hoc experimental physics experiments.

Principal research instruments include a nuclotron superconductive particle accelerator (particle energy: 7 GeV), three isochronic cyclotrons (120, 145, 650 MeV), a phasotron (680 MeV) and a synchrophasotron (4 GeV). The site also has a neutron fast-pulse reactor (1500MW pulse) with nineteen associated instruments receiving neutron beams.

The institute was established on March 26, 1956 on the basis of two research institutes of the USSR Academy of Sciences: the Institute for Nuclear Problems and the Electrophysical Laboratory. Although the first research instrument was built at Dubna in 1947, it was not until the creation of CERN in 1954 that a countervailing group from the West was created—JINR.

Elements discovered at JINR: rutherfordium (1964), seaborgium (1974), bohrium (1976), ununquadium (Island of stability, 1999), ununhexium (2001), ununtrium (2004), ununpentium (2004), ununoctium (2006).