Osmium Tetroxide blog: Soviet Science. Part 2

PART 1

Here's the second part of my story about the Soviet scientific legacy. This time we will talk about nuclear physics.

Let's start with the particle accelerators hidden in the basement of a scientific institute.

Bureau.

Let's go downstairs. Neither the red nor the green lights will be on anymore, so we have plenty of time to look around.

This red thing is a development of this very laboratory. It's called the microtron.

A smaller blue brother.

They are transported behind the concrete walls with a telpher.

Across the corridor, separated by a hermetic door on wheels, is a small linear particle accelerator.

===

The extinct star of nuclear physics.

This star could once be called a supernova, but by today's standards, it is the size of a red dwarf.

But that doesn't stop the lab from working. The current direction of its research does not require high energy.

Accelerator's electrical sources. The size of its fuses and switches is impressive.

From above, you can take a closer look at the accelerator.

The second part of the building houses the substation that powers the accelerator and the institute itself.

The control room. Many discoveries were made at this desk decades ago.

===

The third research complex was studying the survivability of technics under ionizing and microwave radiation. It is located in a metal-shielded hall more than a hundred meters long.

The center of the complex is a vacuum chamber of 380 cubic meters, which was supposed to house test specimens.

Radiation generation began here: there is a high-voltage transformer in this tower.

Through a system of special equipment, part of the radiation was absorbed, and the radiation of the required type reached the vacuum chamber.

The chamber itself is a kind of constructor. By changing the location of its compartments and the route of the rays, it is possible to change the parameters of the experiment.

No vacuum was required to irradiate the test specimens with the second unit. Powered by the same transformer column cascade resonator emitted a focused beam of microwaves directed to the target.

The microwave output window.

Let's finish and move on to the next location.

===

A small place, but very nice.

The control room for the particle accelerators.

There are two linear particle accelerators hidden under the dome. One is still possible to run, the other seems to be standing as a donor and is rusting away.

This one looks better.

Each accelerator has its own entrance from the corridor. It's odd but, only one of them has a hermetic door. Perhaps this design is because its exit faces the side of the control room, where the people were supposed to be.

===

We're going underground. Hidden here is an accelerator that was never meant to be completed.

The plan was to build a ring, but only the C-shaped section made it through.

The tunnel is cut on both sides by metal walls.

Wet shaft.

Tunnels leading from the working section. If the accelerator will be completed, two beams will be driven through them, which, once accelerated in a large ring, will collide with each other, causing the so-called by physicists "events".

===

A particle accelerator that was unlucky. It was sold for scrap metal. Five flights of stairs down. The temperature is like in a cave. Wet air. The accelerator was isolated from the outside world by two hermetic doors, in addition to the thickness of the ground.

The corridor beyond the doors turns to the right. This used to be a linear particle accelerator.

The corridor leads to the main hall. You can see the electromagnets, with bits of copper sticking out of them.

In this hall is a bigger crane. Only the concrete blocks remind us about the accelerator.

Stacked paraffin blocks are stored behind the concrete blocks. They were used to absorb neutrons.

A second entrance inside with a large hermetic door.

===

he remaining two nuclear physics facilities are quite alive. This long linear particle accelerator is so long that it took all night to get a quick look around. It would take half an hour to get from one end to the other.

The room where the particle beam is formed.

The entire LinAc is divided into four parts, separated by grids or concrete walls.

It's better not to stay for long somewhere: there is radiation left over from earlier experiments.

Before entering the hall, we first stick out the dosimeter in a hand. Safe :)

This part is the longest. You can't even see a person at the other end.

The last segment leads to the target and is dangerous because of radiation. That's as far as we go.

===

The last particle accelerator. It has the newest equipment of all. This synchrotron 50 meters in diameter was built in the 90s. It all starts with the injector. In these four electromagnets, electrons are given initial acceleration, then they are picked up by the LinAc coming out of them, and then run in the synchrotron ring.

The ring is located inside a polygon of the hall.