by Viktor DOBRYNIN, Cand. Sc. (Phys. & Math.), senior engineer, Laser Physics and Nanotechnologies Department, Institute of Physics and Technology, Irkutsk State National Technological University The water of Baikal, the world's largest fresh-water lake, is aglow. That's what Irkutsk experts say. True, this glow is very weak, not visible to the naked eye, but is sufficient enough for being registered by multiplier phototubes (MP), the counters of photon singletons. Certain characteristics are indicative of chemiluminescence as the mechanism of spontaneous glow to a depth of 25-125 meters. However, the concrete material source and the nature of such luminescence are a sealed book yet. But what we know for certain is that this phenomenon comes from the purity of lake water. LOOKING BACK "Such studies are underway in seas and oceans, too. But the mechanism of the glow is quite different there-these are luminescent bacteria, algae, and other organisms responsible for a light-induced background (the phenomenon of bioluminescence). Nothing of the kind has been discovered in Lake Baikal. The pattern is different over there, we should delve into it." Such is an opinion of Nikolai Ivanov, director of the Irkutsk Institute of Physics and Technology. We discovered the glow phenomenon* in 1982 in the course of a comprehensive field expedition headed by the RAS Institute of Nuclear Physics. Up until 1991 most of the experiments had been carried out by Irkutsk State University, Tomsk Polytechnical Institute and Institute of Chemical Physics (Moscow). The Moscow Institute of Nuclear Physics and the Limnological Institute (RAS Siberian Branch) gave tangible support to this line of * See: M. Kuzmin, G. Khursevich, "Diatom Chronicle of Lake Baikal and Climatic Change", Science in Russia, No. 3, 2012.-Ed. стр. 11 research. The data thus obtained showed that the Baikal glow phenomenon is different from oceanic biolumines-cence. The f ... Читать далее