Session DG: Mini-Symposium on the Future of Physics at RHIC II

Study of single muon from heavy quark production at forward rapidity in p+p collisions at $\sqrt{s}$=510GeV

PHENIX has studied single muons from semi-leptonic decay of heavy mesons in the forward rapidity region $1.2 < |\eta| < 2.2$. The observation of heavy quark production in p+p collisions is important as a test of pQCD theory. The RHIC 2012 p+p collision run at 510$GeV$ produced the first significant p+p data with the new Forward Vertex (FVTX) detector installed in PHENIX. The FVTX will allow us to measure displaced vertices of single muons taking advantage of the different lifetimes of heavy mesons($D$ and $B$ for example) and long-lived ordinary mesons ($K$ and $\pi^\pm$). We present a study of single muons in RHIC 2012 p+p collision run at 510$GeV$, with well-developed method in previous p+p results at forward rapidity and status of a new study using FVTX.   

Physics with ePHENIX at eRHIC

Addition of a high intensity polarized electron beam facility which could realize Deep Inelastic Scattering (DIS) research with one of the RHIC beams is one of the future upgrades to the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) presently under consideration. To take a full advantage of such machine evolution, after more than a decade of exciting physics results, both with heavy ion and polarized proton collisions, PHENIX Collaboration has launched a detector upgrade study consistent with the above collider upgrades, going in to the eRHIC era. In this talk, we discuss physics topics we plan to address with the e-p and e-A collisions at eRHIC.   

An EIC detector at eRHIC based on the proposed sPHENIX upgrade

One of the proposals for the Electron Ion Collider, eRHIC, would add an electron beam to the current RHIC collider, allowing for polarized e+p collisions as well as collisions of electrons on light and heavy ions. The EIC white paper [1] gives a detailed description of the physics possible with such a machine. The PHENIX experiment at RHIC is currently planning an upgrade, sPHENIX, to its central rapidity detector with a solonoid magnet and electromagnetic and hadron calorimetry to study the quark-gluon plasma with jet probes in heavy ion collisions. We propose to utilize this planned central upgrade--along with an additional forward arm spectrometer for measurements in p+p and p+A of both spin physics and cold (high density) nuclear matter--in e+p and e+A collisions, essentially making this a future eRHIC detector. We present the detector layout for such an eRHIC detector at the current location of PHENIX, and also preliminary studies of its capabilities.\\[4pt] [1] A. Accardi, et al., BNL-98815-2012-JA, JLAB-PHY-12-1652, arXiv:1212.1701   

EIC detector simulations in FairRoot framework

The long-term RHIC facility upgrade plan foresees the addition of a high-energy electron beam to the existing hadron accelerator complex thus converting RHIC into an Electron-Ion Collider (eRHIC). A dedicated EIC detector, designed to efficiently register and identify deep inelastic electron scattering (DIS) processes in a wide range of center-of-mass energies is one of the key elements of this upgrade. Detailed Monte-Carlo studies are needed to optimize EIC detector components and to fine tune their design. The simulation package foreseen for this purpose (EicRoot) is based on the FairRoot framework developed and maintained at the GSI. A feature of this framework is its level of flexibility, allowing one to switch easily between different geometry (ROOT, GEANT) and transport (GEANT3, GEANT4, FLUKA) models. Apart from providing a convenient simulation environment the framework includes basic tools for visualization and allows for easy sharing of event reconstruction codes between higher level experiment-specific applications. The description of the main EicRoot features and first simulation results will be the main focus of the talk.