The PHENIX detector is designed to perform a broad study of A-A, p-A, and p-p collisions to investigate nuclear matter under extreme conditions. A wide variety of probes, sensitive to all timescales, are used to study systematic variations with species and energy as well as to measure the spin structure of the nucleon. Designing for the needs of the heavy-ion and polarized-proton programs has produced a detector with unparalleled capabilities. PHENIX measures electron and muon pairs, photons, and hadrons with excellent energy and momentum resolution. The detector consists of a large number of subsystems that are discussed in other papers in this volume. The overall design parameters of the detector are presented. The PHENIX detector is designed to perform a broad study of A-A, p-A, and p-p collisions to investigate nuclear matter under extreme conditions. A wide variety of probes, sensitive to all timescales, are used to study systematic variations with species and energy as well as to measure the spin structure of the nucleon. Designing for the needs of the heavy-ion and polarized-proton programs has produced a detector with unparalleled capabilities. PHENIX measures electron and muon pairs, photons, and hadrons with excellent energy and momentum resolution. The detector consists of a large number of subsystems that are discussed in other papers in this volume. The overall design parameters of the detector are presented. Disciplines Engineering Physics | Physics Comments This is a manuscript of an article from Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research

The centrality dependence of transverse momentum distributions and yields for ± , K ± , p, and p in Au + Au collisions at ͱ s NN = 200 GeV at midrapidity are measured by the PHENIX experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. We observe a clear particle mass dependence of the shapes of transverse momentum spectra in central collisions below ϳ2 GeV/ c in p T. Both mean transverse momenta and particle yields per participant pair increase from peripheral to midcentral and saturate at the most central collisions for all particle species. We also measure particle ratios of − / + , K − / K + , p / p, K / , p / , and p / as a function of p T and collision centrality. The ratios of equal mass particle yields are independent of p T and centrality within the experimental uncertainties. In central collisions at intermediate transverse momenta ϳ1.5-4.5 GeV/ c, proton and antiproton yields constitute a significant fraction of the charged hadron production and show a scaling behavior different from that of pions.

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The PHENIX experiment at RHIC has measured transverse energy and charged particle multiplicity at mid-rapidity in Au + Au collisions at √ s N N = 19.6, 130 and 200 GeV as a function of centrality. The presented results are compared to measurements from other RHIC experiments, and experiments at lower energies. The √ s N N dependence of dET /dη and dN ch /dη per pair of participants is consistent with logarithmic scaling for the most central events. The centrality dependence of dET /dη and dN ch /dη is similar at all measured incident energies. At RHIC energies the ratio of transverse energy per charged particle was found independent of centrality and growing slowly with √ s N N . A survey of comparisons between the data and available theoretical models is also presented.

First results on charm quarkonia production in heavy ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) are presented. The yield of J/'s measured in the PHENIX experiment via electron-positron decay pairs at midrapidity for Au-Au reactions at ͱ s NN = 200 GeV is analyzed as a function of collision centrality. For this analysis we have studied 49.3ϫ 10 6 minimum bias Au-Au reactions. We present the J/ invariant yield dN/dy for peripheral and midcentral reactions. For the most central collisions where we observe no signal above background, we quote 90% confidence level upper limits. We compare these results with our J/ measurement from proton-proton reactions at the same energy. We find that our measurements are not consistent with models that predict strong enhancement relative to binary collision scaling.

The PHENIX experiment has measured midrapidity ([FORMULA: SEE TEXT]) transverse momentum spectra ([FORMULA: SEE TEXT]) of electrons as a function of centrality in Au+Au collisions at [FORMULA: SEE TEXT]. Contributions from photon conversions and from light hadron decays, mainly Dalitz decays of pi0 and eta mesons, were removed. The resulting nonphotonic electron spectra are primarily due to the semileptonic decays of hadrons carrying heavy quarks. Nuclear modification factors were determined by comparison to nonphotonic electrons in p+p collisions. A significant suppression of electrons at high pT is observed in central Au+Au collisions, indicating substantial energy loss of heavy quarks.