Support Committee for Armenia’s Cosmic Ray Division (SCACRD)
January 28, 2010
Joseph Dagdigian
For questions contact Anahid Yeremian 650 926-4444, or
Joseph Dagdigian 978 772-9417
ARMENIA, PERESTROIKA, AND COSMIC RAYS
Scientific research in independent Armenia after the Cold War and the
demise of USSR.
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By: Davide Sighele
From: Osservatorio Balcani Osservatorio, English News, 13.10.2009
icle/articleview/11969/1/404/
An interview with Ashot Chilingarian, director of Yerevan Physics Institute
Since 2008, Ashot Chilingarian has been director of the Yerevan Physics
Institute of Armenia. In 1993, he was appointed head of the Division for
the Study of Cosmic Rays, energetic particles originating from outer
space that enter Earth’s atmosphere. The Yerevan Institute was founded
in 1942. In the Soviet period, it had one of the largest electron ring
accelerators in the world. Moreover, it founded two high-altitude Cosmic
Ray Stations on Mount Aragats. Professor Chilingarian has dedicated his
whole life to scientific research. In this interview, he reflects on the
years of perestroika, the past and the future of scientific research in
Armenia, and the projects on Mount Aragats.
SIGHELE: You have worked in scientific research since 1971 and had a
forty-year career spanning a period of time when the social context
changed profoundly. The Soviet Union does not exist any more, Armenia is
an independent state, and there was the war in Nagorno-Karabakh…how
has all this influenced your work as scientist?
CHILINGARIAN: My scientific career, if it is really scientific, did not
depend heavily on the political situation. The drastic change since 1971
has been the change in the distribution of scientific information. In
the seventies, I travelled to Moscow’s Lenin Library to read scientific
journals because only one copy of each journal arrived in the Soviet
Union. Now, I get all the articles I need directly from the screen of my
computer and not from a bookshelf over my head. The exchange of
scientific information, direct contacts with universities abroad,
highly-improved peer reviewing procedures – these all made participation
in scientific progress much easier and not crucially dependant on large
funds.
Sure, huge projects are connected to the political situation. However, I
cannot claim that the unlimited funding we had in Soviet times always
supported high-level scientific research. The scientific management was
not the best and huge projects were often started and never finished.
The most important thing for me was the opportunity to work on some of
the world’s biggest international collaborations.
And, finally, it has been very important for me to have the chance to
publish numerous papers in European and American scientific journals.
Responding to reviewer comments – and also reviewing the papers send to
me – helps me be aware of news results in the field, understand how to
best present scientific results, and, finally, better recognize the
methods and goals of scientific exploration.
SIGHELE: The Yerevan Physics Institute, of which you are currently
director, was founded in 1942. What were the main goals of the Institute
in the past? What are the main goals of the Institute nowadays?
CHILINGARIAN: In particular, we worked in the field of particle physics
and started out in cosmic ray research before the first man-made
accelerators were launched. The main goals of cosmic ray research was to
explore the structure of matter, to investigate particle interactions
with matter, and to build new particle detectors. There were also some
military aspects: neutron multiplication, etc…
On Mt. Aragats, we had on of the only earth-based laboratories for
cosmic ray research. We were very strong in scientific instrumentation
and our first director, world-famous physicist Artem Alikhanyan, was
very respected and had very good connections, both among the world’s
best physicists and in Moscow’s high-level offices.
Nowadays, the mission of the institute is a source of debate. The Prime
Minister of Armenia formed an International Commission of Experts to
evaluate the competitiveness of the institute’s scientific direction.
The session of the Commission held at the end of July, 2009 included
reports from the institute director and division leaders, visits to the
institute’s main facilities, and meetings with Armenian officials and
institute scientists. The main conclusion was that YerPhI offers a
unique basis for the further development of science and science
intensive technologies in Armenia and that YerPhI should be transformed
into the National Laboratory of Armenia.
The Commission supports the cosmic ray research at Mt. Aragats and the
work of the YerPhI groups at accelerators abroad in the research of
nucleon structure. However, the proposed experiments in high-energy and
nuclear physics at the home accelerators were declared not
internationally competitive. The Commission recommends creation of a new
dedicated facility (with a cyclotron for protons and heavy ions) to be
used both for fundamental research in nuclear physics and for applied
purposes, including medical treatment. This is a real challenge not only
for the institute, but also for Armenia because this project will
require funds and management skills on a scale which is quite large for
Armenia at present.
SIGHELE: The Soviet Union used to have a significant tradition in the
scientific field – in physics, for example…but not only in physics. At
the time of the tensions between the United State and the Soviet Union,
the role of the scientific community was essential and the role of
scientists was highly-esteemed in Soviet society. What about now?
CHILINGARIAN: All the years of independent Armenian science and
education have been neglected due to a scarcity of funds and poor
management. The prestigious scientist of Soviet Armenia has turned into
a beggar constantly asking the government for money. Therefore, students
are not rushing into the sciences. The opportunity to go abroad, to work
on international collaborations, and participate in conferences is now
the prime motivator for students.
SIGHELE: How has the Armenian scientific community– if we can use this
definition — experienced the huge change that has happened in Europe
and in the Soviet Union since the years of perestroika?
CHILINGARIAN: The Armenian scientific community is dispersed. Scientists
who get international grants, in addition to governmental funding,
become part of international scientific progress. They have modern
equipment, good connections abroad, repaired offices, students, and good
prospects for the future. Unfortunately, the number of such scientists
is not very large. The rest are still waiting on funds from government,
and the question is whether they will be able to continue on course with
modern research after a gap of lost years.
SIGHELE: What are your personal memories of those years?
CHILINGARIAN: In 1993, I became head of Cosmic Ray Division of YerPhI
and it was real challenge. There was absolutely no funding (a monthly
salary of ~5$), no electricity, no heating, no fuel. You could hardly
survive in the city, so running high-altitude cosmic ray stations seemed
like pure madness. Now, looking back on those years, I’m really
surprised we did our research at Mt. Aragats. There were very difficult
winter months with electricity cut-offs, but we never shut down the
stations in all those years. Furthermore, we created new scientific
infrastructure, bringing the Cosmic Ray Division to the foremost
position in the world in modern research fields such as Space Weather
and Thunderstorm phenomena. We have had very good temperatures in recent
years and now, each year, we add some new research activity to our
centre. This year, we added geomagnetic field measurements. Next year,
we plan to start radio-monitoring of the sun, etc… So, I can sum it
up: we survived and we became strong!
SIGHELE: What is the relationship between scientific research and
education in Armenia?
CHILINGARIAN: In Soviet times, universities mainly taught and all
research was concentrated in Research Centres like the Yerevan Physics
Institute. Of course, students came to get diplomas and many scientists
from the institute were teaching (I taught at Yerevan State University
for 30 years). However, the Institute and University were under
different umbrellas and were completely different organizations.
Now, we need to join research and education. Every year, the students
coming into the Institute are weaker and weaker because they did not get
proper training in schools and universities. If we want to have a next
generation of researchers, we need to urgently create education centres
in institutions like YerPhI where expertise in modern science still
remains. For three years now, the Cosmic Ray Division has operated a
Space Education Centre. My students from the University come to YerPhI
not only to listen lectures about cosmic rays and modern astrophysics,
but also to work in laboratories for experimental physics, electronics,
and data analysis which we have constructed specifically for educational
purposes. This lets some students who like experimental physics work
with modern equipment.
SIGHELE: The Armenian diaspora played a crucial role in Armenia’s
independence. Is this true also for the Institute that you direct?
CHILINGARIAN: In the year 2000, Armenian-Americans from California,
Massachusetts and Michigan established a Cosmic Rays Division Friends
Organization to support our research and our scientists. These
initiatives were coordinated by Anahid Yeremian, a physicist from /SLAC
National Accelerator Laboratory/ in Stanford. The funds they donated
were transferred via special projects of the National Foundation of
Science and High Technologies (NFSAT), chaired by Harut Karapetyan. In
the beginning, we used the funds to support our scientists and students,
to buy equipment, and to maintain operation of the high-altitude
station. In recent years, these expenses have been covered by the CRD
research grants and the diaspora funds have been primarily used for the
repair of infrastructure and of buildings at high-altitude research
stations.
SIGHELE: How do you judge the level of scientific research in modern-day
Armenia?
CHILINGARIAN: Still high, but fast decaying.
SIGHELE: What is your greatest fear for the future, and what is your
greatest hope?
CHILINGARIAN: The level of education is also decaying very quickly and
I’m afraid we may not get the minimum amount of students required to
continue our projects in the future.
Our greatest hope is that there are students currently working at CRD
who are really devoted to physics. Another hope is that the government
finally seems to recognize that if they forget about science again, in a
couple of years, there will be nothing to remember.
COSMIC STATION
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By Bettina Timm
GERMANY, 2008
Mount Aragats is the highest in Armenia. At a 3,500 metres height, what
is left of a prestigious Soviet project is a cosmic rays monitoring
station. This institute used to gather the best physics scholars with
the goal of studying the secrets the universe is made of. Over a hundred
women and men used to live there, looking for information on distant
galaxies and the particles created by cosmic rays. Most researchers left
when funds ran out with the demise of USSR. Yet, incredibly, some
Armenian scholars still resist on this peak, living like ghosts in the
old buildings, left in the cold, forgotten by the world and the
institutions, only supported by their faith in science and passion for
research.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress