Speaker
Description
The sPHENIX experiment is a next-generation collider detector at RHIC designed for rare jet and heavy flavor probes of the Quark-Gluon Plasma and polarized proton-proton collisions. sPHENIX includes large-acceptance electromagnetic and hadronic calorimetry, the latter of which for the first time at RHIC, as well as a four-subsystem precision tracking system comprising a MAPS-based silicon pixel detector, a fast silicon strip detector, a compact time projection chamber, and a micromegas-based outer tracker. The trackers can be read out in both triggered and streaming modes, allowing for the recording of large unbiased datasets for open heavy flavor, a unique capability at RHIC. The experiment further comprises a series of forward/global detectors, and a Level-1 trigger and data-acquisition system. sPHENIX was successfully commissioned with proton and gold beams during Runs 23 and 24. This talk describes the commissioning process, including unexpected challenges, the preparation of each subsystem for physics data-taking, and lessons learned for the nuclear physics community.
| Category | Experiment |
|---|---|
| Collaboration (if applicable) | sPHENIX Collaboration |
