23rd International Baldin Seminar on High Energy Physics Problems - Relativistic Nuclear Physics and Quantum Chromodynamics, Dubna, Russia

The NICA (Nuclotron-based Ion Collider fAcility) project is now under active realization at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR, Dubna). The main goal of the project is a study of hot and dense strongly interacting matter in heavy-ion (up to Au) collisions at the center-of-mass energies up to 11 GeV per nucleon. Two modes of operation are foreseen, collider mode and extracted beams, with two detectors: MPD and BM@N. The both experiments are in preparation stage. An average luminosity in the collider mode is expected to be 10(27) cm(-2) s(-1) for Au (79+). Extracted beams of various nuclei with maximum momenta of 13 GeV/c (for protons) will be available. A study of spin physics with extracted and colliding beams of polarized deuterons and protons at energies up to 27 GeV (for protons) is foreseen with the NICA facility. The proposed program allows one to search for possible signs of phase transitions and critical phenomena as well as to shed light on the problem of the nucleon spin structure.