The sPHENIX experiment at RHIC

Abstract

sPHENIX is a state-of-the-art jet, upsilon and open heavy flavor experiment currently under construction at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, RHIC. sPHENIX will take first physics data in 2023, performing measurements of hard-probe obervables of the Quark-Gluon Plasma complementary to those from the LHC experiments. In this article we describe the science mission, detector layout and key performance parameters of sPHENIX, and give illustrative examples of planned measurements in heavy-ion collisions.

QCD thermalization: Ab initio approaches and interdisciplinary connections

“…In the United States, continued operation of RHIC will provide further insight into several of the signatures that we have discussed. In particular, with the anticipated commissioning of the sPHENIX detector [630], hard probes of QCD off-equilibrium will be studied in a dynamical range that is complementary to that of the LHC.…”

An experimental review of open heavy flavor and quarkonium production at RHIC

“…At least 100 times more statistics will be collected aiming for dedicated bottom measurement via hadronic decay channels. Such as precision measurement of nuclear modification factors and flows for B-mesons and btagged jets [167].…”

The Little-Bang and the femto-nova in nucleus-nucleus collisions

“…[85]. Also shown for reference are the expected collision rates of ALICE at LHC [86] and sPHENIX at RHIC [87] both in collider (Multi Purpose Detector) and fixed target (Baryonic Matter at Nuclotron) modes [82]. The center of mass collision energies will be in the range of √ s NN = 4−11 GeV.…”