sPHENIX is a new detector at RHIC.

[David Morrison <morrison AT bnl.gov>]

Dear collaborators,

The RHIC accelerator and the experiments will be on public display on
Sunday, August 6 as part of the annual Summer Sunday open house series.
I think it's not entirely settled exactly how sPHENIX will be shown, but
good ideas are always welcome.  It's not practical to bring the public
to see the sPHENIX solenoid (we checked on that!), but there are many
other things we can set up (in Berkner or nearby) that would be
interesting for the non-expert public to see.  One thing the
collaboration could help with is coming up with some new posters that
could be on display.  The collection of posters that was developed for
QM'17 was super, but those were aimed at our colleagues in the field,
and they're probably too "expert level" for the general public.

Some thoughts (happy to hear more, or better, ones!):

A poster with two drawings of sPHENIX on it - the cut-open version we're
all accustomed to seeing, as well as a version that is not cut-open.  We
all know that the real detector is whole and complete, but it needs to
be make very explicit for the general public.  Like, having the closed
up detector at the top of the poster with a big curved arrow labeled
with "Look Inside!" pointing from it down to the cut away version.

A poster about phototubes and SiPMs, with a non-expert description about
how the two work.  The poster could be set up in front of a table with
some real PMTs and an SiPM.  People will be impressed by how small SiPMs
are compared to PMTs.  We could amplify on that difference by having a
magnifying glass available for people to see the SiPM through.

A poster about the MVTX – again, at level suitable for the general
public.  One thing we could do is compare the vertex resolution to
something tangible that might impress people.  For instance, we have
drift chamber wire with a diameter that's about twice as large as the
high pT MVTX DCA.  We could have people feel how thin that wire is –
something we've done in many previous Summer Sundays – and let them
marvel at the precision of the MVTX.

A poster about the EMCal modules that emphasizes the involvement of
students in its production and of 3D printing in the prototyping.  I
think pictures of students and postdocs making modules will be very
popular.  People don't generally know the degree to which these
high-tech detectors are built by students.  Also, lot sof people have
heard of 3D printing and will be impressed that it's being used for real
applications.  Having a real EMCal block (and a bright little
flashlight) for people to look would be a bonus.

A poster about Upsilons, or about how we try to bring some measure of
scale to heavy-ion collisions.  If anything, I'd err on the side of
being cartoony rather than too rigorous – maybe with b and b-bar quarks
orbiting each other, and perhaps the rhetorical title "How do you
measure a femtometer?", or something like that.

I'm sure there are plenty of other things we could do.  I'd keep them
fairly simple, single topic, aimed at the non-expert public.

Any ideas?  Any volunteers to make a poster?

Cheers,
Dave and Gunther

-- 
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