NICA project at JINR: status and prospects

The project NICA (Nuclotron-based Ion Collider fAcility) is aimed to study hot and dense baryonic matter in heavy-ion collisions in the energy range up to 11.0 AGeV . The plan of NICA accelerator block development includes an upgrade of the existing superconducting (SC) synchrotron Nuclotron and construction of the new injection complex, SC Booster, and SC Collider with two interaction points (IP). The heavy-ion collision program will be performed with the fixed target experiment Baryonic Matter at Nuclotron (BM@N) at the beam extracted from the Nuclotron, and with Multi-Purpose Detector (MPD) at the first IP of NICA Collider. Investigation of nucleon spin structure and polarization phenomena is foreseen with the Spin Physics Detector (SPC) at the second IP of the Collider