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 temperature dependence and coupling strength, by using a suite of precision jet and upsilon measurements that probe different length scales of the QGP. This will be achieved with large acceptance, $|\eta| < 1$ and $0$-$2\pi$ in $\phi$, electromagentic and hadronic calorimeters and precision tracking enabled by a $1.5$ T superconducting magnet. With the increased luminosity afforded by accelerator upgrades, sPHENIX will perform high statistics measurements extending the kinematic reach at RHIC to overlap the LHC's. This overlap with the LHC will facilitate better understanding of the role of temperature, density and parton virtuality in QGP dynamics and for jet quenching in particular. This talk will focus on key future measurements and the current state of the sPHENIX project.