Status and Physics Opportunities of the STAR Heavy Flavor Tracker and the Muon Telescope Detector Upgrades

Abstract

The STAR Collaboration will complete the Heavy Flavor Tracker (HFT) and the Muon Telescope Detector (MTD) upgrades by 2014. HFT utilizes the state-of-art active pixel detector technology, which will greatly enhance the STAR physics capabilities by measuring heavy quark yield, collectivity and correlations via the topological reconstruction of charmed hadrons over a wide momentum range. The MTD is based on the long Multi-Gap Resistive Plate Chamber detector technology designed to measure muons penetrating the bulk of other detectors and the magnet yoke. It will enable STAR to study di-muon and electron-muon correlations and enhance heavy quarkonium studies. With the addition of these upgrades, STAR is well suited to perform precise measurements of production as well as correlations of rare probes (heavy flavors, dileptons) to systematically investigate the quark-gluon plasma properties at RHIC. For Run 13 63% of the MTD has been installed and data have been taken. Prototype PXL sectors (30% coverage) have also been installed and commissioned. Anticipated physics results and current status of these upgrades is reported.