A new detector at RHIC, sPHENIX goals and status

Abstract

The study of heavy-ion collisions, which can create a new form matter, a nearly ideal strongly interacting fluid where quarks and gluons are no longer confined into nucleons, called Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP), is on the frontier of QCD studies. The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Lab (BNL) has had a long and successful program of QGP study since 2000, with many upgrades that have increased the delivered luminosity considerably in the last decade. The sPHENIX proposal is for a second generation experiment at RHIC, which will take advantage of the increased luminosity, and allow measurements of jets, jet correlations and Upsilons (ϒs), with a kinematic reach that will overlap with measurements made at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Complementary measurements at RHIC and at the LHC probe the QGP at different temperatures and densities, which are necessary to determine the temperature dependence of transport coefficients of the QGP. The sPHENIX detector will have large acceptance electromagnetic and hadronic calorimetry, as well as precision tracking, and high rate capability which are necessary for precision jet and ϒ observables. The experiment will enable a program of systematic measurements at RHIC, with a detector capable of acquiring a large sample of events in p+p, p+A, and A+A collisions. This proceedings outlines the key measurements enabled by the new detector, and status of the project itself.