SPHENIX: The next generation heavy ion detector at RHIC

Abstract

sPHENIX is a new collaboration and future detector project at Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). It seeks to answer fundamental questions on the nature of the quark gluon plasma (QGP), including its coupling strength and temperature dependence, by using a suite of precision jet and upsilon measurements that probe different length scales of the QGP. This is possible with a full acceptance, |η| < 1 and 0-2π in φ, electromagentic and hadronic calorimeters and precision tracking enabled by a 1.5 T superconducting magnet. With the increased luminosity afforded by accelerator upgrades, sPHENIX is going to perform high statistics measurements extending the kinematic reach at RHIC to overlap the LHC’s. This overlap is going to facilitate a better understanding of the role of temperature, density and parton virtuality in QGP dynamics and, specifically, jet quenching. This paper focuses on key future measurements and the current state of the sPHENIX project.