TECHNICAL DESIGN REPORT OF THE FORWARD SILICON VERTEX (FVTX)

Technical Report · Wed Aug 01 04:00:00 EDT 2007

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/912839· OSTI ID:912839

EXPERIMENT, PHENIX; OBRIEN, E; PAK, R; DREES, K A

The main goal of the RHIC heavy ion program is the discovery of the novel ultra-hot high-density state of matter predicted by the fundamental theory of strong interactions and created in collisions of heavy nuclei, the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP). From measurements of the large elliptic flow of light mesons and baryons and their large suppression at high transverse momentum pT that have been made at RHIC, there is evidence that new degrees of freedom, characteristic of a deconfined QCD medium, drive the dynamics of nucleus-nucleus collisions. It has been recognized, however, that the potential of light quarks and gluons to characterize the properties of the QGP medium is limited and the next phase of the RHIC program calls for the precise determination of its density, temperature, opacity and viscosity using qualitatively new probes, such as heavy quarks. We propose the construction of two Forward Silicon Vertex Trackers (FVTX) for the PHENIX experiment that will directly identify and distinguish charm and beauty decays within the acceptance of the muon spectrometers. The FVTX will provide this essential coverage over a range of forward and backward rapidities (1.2 < |y| < 2.4)--a rapidity range coverage which not only brings significantly larger acceptance to PHENIX but which is critical for separating cold nuclear matter effects from QGP effects and is critical for measuring the proton spin contributions over a significant fraction of the kinematic range of interest. In addition, the FVTX will provide greatly reduced background and improved mass resolution for dimuon events, culminating in the first measurements of the {upsilon}{prime} and Drell-Yan at RHIC. These same heavy flavor and dimuon measurements in p+p collisions will allow us to place significant constraints on the gluon and sea quark contributions to the proton's spin and to make fundamentally new tests of the Sivers function universality.

• Research Organization: Brookhaven National Laboratory
• Sponsoring Organization: Doe - Office Of Science
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-98CH10886
• OSTI ID: 912839
• Report Number(s): BNL--79216-2007; KB0201021
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
BARYONS
DEGREES OF FREEDOM
DESIGN
HEAVY IONS
HEAVY NUCLEI
MASS RESOLUTION
MESONS
NUCLEAR MATTER
PARTICLE RAPIDITY
QUANTUM CHROMODYNAMICS
QUARK MATTER
SAFETY REPORTS
SILICON
STRONG INTERACTIONS
TRANSVERSE MOMENTUM