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This paper presents the progress of development of the NICA project vacuum system. The main vacuum requirements in the chain of accelerators and the current status of work are described. Special attention is paid to the problems of achieving ultra-high vacuum in the booster. The test bench for the study of most efficient pumping tools for the beam chamber of the superconducting fast cycling synchrotron has been designed and built for this purpose in cooperation with the VakuumPraha Company (Prague, Czech Republic). The vacuum distribution in the superconducting accelerators with “warm” chamber parts at room temperature was simulated using specialized software. The simulation showed that it is necessary to install additional pumping equipment along the booster perimeter. To solve this problem, the original design of a titanium sublimation pump operating at cryogenic temperatures is under development in collaboration with the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics (Novosibirsk, Russia).

Achieving the ultra-high vacuum (UHV) in the collider and booster of the NICA project is one of the main challenges when creating this device. It determines the need for a serious approach to this issue and conducting research in this direction. First, it is necessary to understand the effect of the various components of the vacuum systems on the degree of vacuum. It is also necessary to carry out studies of pumping devices for producing the required vacuum (10–9 Pa) in the beam chamber and choose the most optimal pumping scheme. At the same time, it is necessary to figure out how various operations are carried out with the vacuum chamber: preparation of vacuum surfaces, letting in the atmosphere, and warming the chamber after closing the influence on the degree of vacuum and the composition of the residual gas. The temperature may vary from room temperature to liquid helium temperature due to the difficulty of keeping the beam-chamber walls at a constant temperature, including the inner components. This complicates the processes taking place within it. Additional complexity arises due the heating of the chamber walls by various processes during the operation of the accelerator (for example, cycling the magnetic field).

The NICA project, which includes several accelerators of charged particles, is under construction in the Laboratory of High Energy Physics, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), Dubna. Obtaining the required vacuum conditions is one of the key points in implementing the project, because reaching the required ion lifetime at all stages of particle acceleration is what determines the effective luminosity of the experiments in the long run. Currently, modernization of the vacuum system of the injection complex of the LU-20 linear accelerator of light ions, one of oldest accelerators in the JINR, is being carried out and the new HILAC linear accelerator for the acceleration of gold ions in the collider mode of the NICA complex is being installed. At the end parts of the linear accelerators, the residual gas pressure must be approximately 10–5 Pa, which is determined by the maximum amplitude of the RF electric field used for the acceleration of ions.

In the Laboratory of High Energies at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, as part of the NICA-MPD [1] project, tests of two prototypes of HTSC current leads prepared at ASIPP institute (Hefei, China) have been performed [2, 3] to measure electric and heat parameters and to search for structural and physical drawbacks. Based on the experimental results, necessary changes are made in the structure of HTSC current leads of the testing stand for the magnetic element testing of the NICA accelerating complex and its basic setups: the Nuclotron, Booster, and Collider.