MRI Consortium: Development of an Event Plane Detector for the sPHENIX Experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider

MRI 联盟：为相对论重离子对撞机的 sPHENIX 实验开发事件平面探测器

• 批准号: 2117773
• 负责人: Rosi Reed
• 金额: $ 57.21万
• 依托单位: Lehigh University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-09-01 至 2024-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2117773&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: MRI; Consortium; Development; Event; Plane

This award will fund the construction, installation, and commissioning of an Event Plane Detector called the sPHENIX Event Plane Detector (sEPD) at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory. At RHIC, nuclei are accelerated to nearly the speed of light, and then collided in order to form a droplet of matter so hot that the quarks and gluons which comprise the neutrons and protons of the nuclei are no longer confined. Understanding this novel form of matter, called the Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP), allows a better understanding of the strong nuclear force and the mechanism by which sub-atomic matter organizes itself. The QGP rapidly expands and cools after its creation, and its properties are investigated through measurements of the resulting particles in the detectors. The sEPD will allow each collision to be better characterized by measuring charged particles with fine segmentation in a region not covered by other detectors, and will therefore improve the precision of multiple measurements. Understanding how small a droplet of QGP at RHIC can exist is of fundamental interest and can only be determined using the increased precision granted by the sEPD. The design and construction of the detector will be carried out at the university level, with strong involvement of undergraduate and graduate students, for whom such hands-on opportunities are increasingly rare. Students from underrepresented groups will be recruited in order to increase their participation in particle and nuclear physics detector development, where they have been historically poorly represented compared to physics as a whole.The sPHENIX detector is currently under construction and will be commissioned for first data taking in 2023 at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The sEPD will be a new detector that will be integrated into sPHENIX to deliver unique measurements of jet quenching anisotropy at RHIC. The proposal is to design, build, and install the sEPD in time for data taking in 2023. The sEPD comprises two sub-detectors, one in each of the forward and backward angle regions. Each sub-detector comprises 12 azimuthal sectors, each with 31 segments. Each segment is a scintillator tile with an optical fiber embedded to extract the light signal, which is then read out via silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs). The scintillator will be milled by CNC machines, with the optical fiber assemblies glued in by teams of students and post-docs. The electronics read-out chain will largely use electronics already designed for sPHENIX, but the boards for the SiPMs and the amplification circuit they require will be newly designed and assembled for the project. Each finished assembly will be tested using a radioactive strontium source in order to determine the measurement efficiency and to ensure that the internal mapping of the optical fibers is correct. The full sEPD detector will be assembled and installed at Brookhaven National Laboratory.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该奖项将资助在布鲁克黑文国家实验室的相对论重离子对撞机（RHIC）的事件平面检测器的建设，安装和调试。 在RHIC中，核被加速至几乎是光速，然后碰撞以形成一滴物质，以至于不再限制构成核的中子和质子的夸克和胶子。 了解这种新颖的物质形式，称为夸克·格鲁恩等离子体（QGP），可以更好地理解强大的核力量和亚原子物质组织本身的机制。 QGP创建后迅速扩展和冷却，并通过测量探测器中所得颗粒来研究其性质。 SEPD将使每次碰撞通过在其他检测器所覆盖的区域中测量带有细分的带电粒子的特征，从而提高多个测量值的精度。 了解RHIC的QGP液滴的小小的很小是具有基本利益，并且只能使用SEPD授予的提高精度来确定。 探测器的设计和建设将在大学一级进行，并在本科生和研究生方面有很大的参与，而这种动手的机会越来越罕见。 将招募来自代表性不足的群体的学生，以增加他们参与粒子和核物理探测器的发展，与整个物理相比，他们在历史上的代表性差。Sphenix探测器目前正在建设中，并将被委托用于首先数据。 2023年，在布鲁克黑文国家实验室的相对论重离子对撞机。 SEPD将是一个新的检测器，将集成到Sphenix中，以提供RHIC的射流淬灭各向异性的独特测量。 该建议是在2023年及时设计，构建和安装SEPD以及时以数据为单位。SEPD包括两个子检测器，一个向前和向后角区域中一个。 每个子检测器均包含12个方位扇区，每个部门都有31个段。 每个片段都是带有光纤以提取光信号的光纤闪烁瓷砖，然后通过硅光电塑料（sipms）读出。 闪烁体将由CNC机器铣削，并由学生和后DOC团队粘在光纤组件中。 电子读出链将在很大程度上使用已经为Sphenix设计的电子设备，但是SIPMS的板和所需的放大电路将是新设计和组装的。 为了确定测量效率并确保光纤的内部映射是正确的，将使用放射性锶源对每个成品组件进行测试。 整个SEPD探测器将在布鲁克黑文国家实验室组装和安装。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是值得通过基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响评估标准通过评估来支持的。