sPHENIX is a new detector at RHIC.

[David Morrison <morrison AT bnl.gov>]

Dear collaborators,

Thanks to Jin Huang, here are minutes from last Friday's general meeting.

Regards,
Dave

sPHENIX News: QM, collaboration census, potential new institutions -
Gunther Roland

Post CD-0 updates
     LBNL and UC Berkeley have expressed intention to join sPHENIX
     Dave presenting sPHENIX Cold QCD plan and path towards EIC

QM17
     One parallel talk (out of 9 in the session) and 18 poster abstracts
     Please nominate the parallel talk speaker and posters presenter

IB and Collaboration survey on-going.
     IB updating collaborator list
     Expect email to each collaborator ask about physics interest and plan.

3rd sPHENIX Collaboration meeting, December 15-17, 2016
     Please sign up now. 53 registrants as of now.
     Please send suggestion on the agenda
https://indico.bnl.gov/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=2327

Project update  - Edward O'Brien

sPHENIX Status
     sPHENIX officially received CD-0 Sept 2016. BNL notification came
2.5 weeks ago.
     The FPD has been identified. Lloyd Nelson BHSO, The NP Program
Manager will be Elizabeth Bartosz
     Setting up project accounts in next couple of weeks
     Request from DOE for sPHENIX OPC(R&D) plan by Dec 10.
     Jim Sowinski has set up a monthly phone call with me on PHENIX R&R.
     Preparation for full-field magnet test of sPHENIX SC-Magnet
(formally the BaBar magnet) ongoing. Test scheduled for Feb
     R&D on all detector systems progressing.
     Removal of old PHENIX experimental equipment is progressing in
Building 1008.

Near term focus
     Prepare for a CD-1 review in the June 2017 (Target date)
     Revise the sPHENIX bottoms-up cost estimate and project plan.
     Prepare the EMCal and HCAL for the next FNAL test beam
     Order the  full size OHCal prototype
     Complete the full-field magnet test early CY2017
     Generate  the documents for a CD-1 review
     Continue progress on all sPHENIX design and R&D

All designs should be completed before Aug 2018, CD3-b

Schedule
     CD-0, Sept 2016
     Test Beam at FNAL(2nd round prototyping) , Jan 2017
     CD-1 Practice Review – v1(sPHENIX organized), Feb 2017
     CD-1 Practice Review – v2(Director organized)        , April 2017
     OPA-CD-1/CD-3a Review, Jun 2017(Target date)
     CD-1/CD-3a  authorization, Nov-Dec  2017
     All Preproduction R&D and Design complete, May-Jun 2018
     OPA- CD-2/CD-3b review , May-Jun  2018
     CD-2/CD-3b  authorization, Jul-Aug 2018
     sPHENIX Installed, cabled, ready to commission, Apr 2021
     First RHIC beam for sPHENIX, Jan 2022

Slide4: Scope and parallel activities of sPHENIX MIE

Slide 6: Documents requirement for CD-1

Slide 7-9: WBS, Report schedule, Review preparations, and Reporting plan

Slide 10-12: detector R&D highlights

Discussion:
     The Project’s #1 Issue is schedule and the #1a Issue is budget
     The Conceptual Design has started  to be shortly followed by the
Technical Design
     We need additional help in all subsystems, tasks.
     Generation for the many documents for CD-1 starts now

MAPS recent progress - Ming Liu

CERN Visit:
     Walt Sondheim and Ming Liu from LANL
     LANL joined ALICE/ITS project as an Associate Member
     MOU discussions, LDRD and sPHENIX
     Lab visit, R&D plan

New Collaboration
     LBNL
     Czech

MIE Proposal Writing outline on slide 3
     First draft for Collaboration - Dec 15-17
     Complete draft by Jan. Discuss with DOE in Feb 2017
     Preparing Dropbox draft to collaborative editing

Jamie: is there an email list for MAPS

Gunther: will make new sPHENIX email list for MAPS (done!)

Cold QCD TG recent progress - Christine Aidala

     Regular biweekly meetings of 15-20 people. Seven topics recently
under development. Expect new meeting time survey.

Plan:
     Update sPHENIX-based EIC detector LOI with full simulations and new
studies
     Develop case for how forward-sPHENIX

Discussion:
     Chris/Nils: plan to import EIC event generator to sPHENIX software
framework
     Christine/Gunther: big questions to be answered for time line for
fsPHENIX. To be discussed in the collaboration meeting.
     John L. : near term important to layout compelling and coherent
physics case for fsPHENIX

HF TG recent progress - Michael McCumber

Overview:
     Pushing track-counting and secondary vertex to full Geant4
     Next major step: reevaluating tagging in Central Au+Au
     Regular reports in Tue sPHENIX simulation meeting

Track counting methods
     In cooperated in Geant4 in 2-D DCA, expanding to 3-D DCA
     Next: embedding to HI environments

Secondary vertex tagging
     Established secondary vertex tagging in p+p and full G4 simulation
     Next step towards embedding to HI environments

Upsilon TG recent progress - Marzia Rosati
     Goal The observable we plan to measure Y(1S), Y(2S), Y(3S) RAA
     Done: Determine with realistic clustering and detector
configuration in central Au-Au collisions as a function of eta and pt
     In progress: Determine correlated background (bottom, charm
semi-leptonic decays and DY)

Slide 4-7: updated Upsilon R_AA

Plans:
     Complete the Upsilon signal extraction using Crystal Ball functions
     Verify Pythia parameters for correlated backgrounds and generated
higher statistics plots for more accurate estimates of backgrounds at
high pt

Chris: what’s the number of clusters used in found track and fit

Tony/Mike/Marzia: adjustable. Now a distribution uses 30-60 clusters

Gunther: why are binning and projection different for R_AA compared the
updated VS proposal

Tony: used different assumption on background. Expect difference smaller
with Crystal ball gets closer too.

Gunther: QM17 is good opportunity to show stable and updated performance
plots from all topical groups.

Marzia/Tony: Upsilon TG plan to update PID in QM17. Plan final R_AA
update for CD-1 documents if not earlier for QM17.

-- 
David Morrison  Brookhaven National Laboratory  phone: 631-344-5840
                Physics Department, Bldg 510 C    fax: 631-344-3253
                          Upton, NY 11973-5000  email: dave AT bnl.gov