Fulfilling the RHIC mission with sPHENIX

Abstract

RHIC has made groundbreaking contributions to the understanding of QCD under extreme conditions with the discovery of the quark gluon plasma (QGP) as a perfect fluid and first observations of energy loss. It continues to play a crucial role in understanding and quantifying the properties of the QGP as well as mapping out the QCD phase diagram. However, detailed questions concerning partonic energy loss in the QGP remain. There is a need to build a new detector at RHIC to measure important rare probes of the QGP. A new detector will benefit from advances in reconstructing jets in heavy ion collisions and the increased luminosity achievable with RHIC. Constraining models at RHIC and LHC energies are crucial for extracting the temperature dependence of transport properties of the QGP. To measure newly developed observables made at the LHC with high precision at RHIC, a detector with full azimuthal coverage and spanning a pseudorapidity range between -1.1 and 1.1, known as sPHENIX, has been proposed. The capabilities of the new detector will allow for a full understanding of jet energy loss and upsilon suppression. The goals for sPHENIX and route to achieving these goals along with the current status of the detector will be presented on behalf of the new collaboration.