sPHENIX is a new detector at RHIC.

[Gunther M Roland <rolandg AT mit.edu>]

Friends,

We had a very useful discussion yesterday. We are pulling together a summary and additional information that will be distributed shortly. We urgently need to make several initial decisions to allow the simulation and software teams and the topical groups to start studying options. On the other hand, we need to be reasonably sure that we don't invest time into defining and evaluating options that might turn out to be irrelevant. 

A possible "safe" start would be to begin by evaluating capabilities/performance/physics plots for a "reference configuration". That will (a) provide a reference to quantify the loss of physics performance for various "best worst case (BeWoC)" (tm JN) choices, (b) provide an existence proof for a ~realistic detector that can achieve our physics goals and (c) allow everyone to get going with their studies while we hash out the (few!) BeWoC  scenarios.

Following the discussion yesterday, our suggestion for the "reference configuration" would be to use the "$82M" design for the EMCal, inner HCAL and outer HCAL (and magnet...) and complement this with a tracker consisting of either (a) 3-layer ALICE ITS MAPS IB copy + ideal TPC or (b) full ALICE ITS copy (IB + middle and outer layers). Here "ideal TPC" refers to assuming (near-) perfect correction of space charge distortions.

Please consider these suggestions and if you believe you have a better suggestion of how to get the actual simulation/physics study effort going, or have a better suggestion for a reference configuration, continue this thread. Let us repeat that the process to define the final BeWoC's has to go ahead in parallel over the next days. Stay tuned. 

Cheers,

Gunther and Dave