sPHENIX is a new detector at RHIC.

[Martin Purschke <purschke AT bnl.gov>]

At the 40th SFM, we had 3 agenda items,

- "Collaboration News" by Gunther,
- "sPHENIX Status" by JohnH (narrated by Gunther since John could not be
here)
- "Workshop ideas" - discussion led by Gunter and Dave.


Gunther started out with the general "State of the Union" remarks.

The IB has approved the a number of new Chinese institutions to join the
collaboration -

 - Fudan University, Shanghai
 - Institute of Modern Physics, Lanzhou
 - Peking University
 - Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics,
 - Sun Yat Sen (Zhongshan) University, Guangdong
 - Tsinghua University, Beijing
 - USTC, Hefei

Welcome to sPHENIX!

There is room for more institutions to join. We currently have 70 member
institutions, which is an impressive number.

Next step is to strengthen the actual workforce at the institutions with
faculty/PDs/students to work more full-time on sPHENIX.

There are plans for an EmCal-themed workshop in China in the spring of
2018 (keep in mind the extremely packed calendar though).

Given the now-larger spread in time zones, we will likely have to
re-think the timing of the fortnightly meeting to avoid Friday
midnights (or even later) for some.


The Abstracts for QM18 have been submitted. We are expecting two oral
presentations and all posters to be accepted; we will select speakers
and presenters then.


There are two workshops and meetings in the near future where we should
send a speaker:

"Triggering Discoveries in High Energy Physics" -
https://indico.cern.ch/event/659612/ in Puebla, Mexico, Jan 29 - Feb 2
and the
Winter Workshop - https://indico.cern.ch/event/664310/ in Guadeloupe
(that's for you if you like balmy areas, in the Caribbean) 25-31 March.

We seem to have some difficulties identifying speakers for those
meetings. It is important that sPHENIX shows flag. Martin suggested to
give new institutions a getting-up-to-speed period and then ask those
institutions to put up a speaker for these kinds of events. This has
worked well in Martin's pre-previous collaboration where this led to
newcomers learning a lot more about the experiment than they would have
otherwise.

Takao asked if there has been progress in the discussions with Sao
Paolo. They are the lead institution in producing the ALICE and our
TPC's SAMPA chip, and they had previously expressed interest in joining
sPHENIX. Dave said that nothing concrete has transpired, but that he and
Gunther will follow up with them.


We all know that the first half of 2018's calendar is really full. Some
key dates:

 - Director’s review II, BNL, March 6-8
 - Software/computing review, BNL,  April (tbc)
 - CD-1 review, BNL, May 8-10
 - Quark Matter, Venice, May 13-19
 - RHIC PAC meeting, BNL, June 7-8 (tbc)
 - User’s meeting, BNL, June 12-15
 - sPHENIX collaboration meeting - before/after PAC meeting?

(let me add that the already fixed dates can be found in the official
sPHENIX calendar,
https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=rjmgqjsdcihldomnvrcc5ccue8 AT group.calendar.google.com
)

The MVTX proposal will be sent out for an internal review and
read-through. There are a number of new physics topics covered in the
proposal, which will need some checks. With the submission process
expected to start in the 2nd half of January, time is of the essence here.


A number of names were proposed  to serve on the EC. Dave and Gunther
will contact them to see if they'd be willing to serve. The IB election
process will be in mid-January.



Since JohnH could not join us, Gunther performed the dramatic reading of
John's slides.

- the magnet flux return box is built

- power supplies have been tested for shorts up to 4700A

- cooldown is on track and stood at 140K a few days ago


The test beam preparations are on track. In John's presentation you can
see some detectors, such as the IHCal prototype (still made of steel, we
are all aware of the de-scoping discussions), the high-eta Emcal, and
the INTT, which will be part of the Fermilab lineup.

Martin suggested that remote institutions thinking of contributing to
the general test beam efforts should discuss this ahead of time with the
groups in question, such as the EmCal - the show must go on also at BNL,
and more hands might be needed here, not only at FNAL.


Workshop ideas --


For the time leading up to the next NP Long-Range Plan in 2021,
workshops should be organized to strengthen a number of physics topics.
The idea is to identify feasible measurements and demonstrate a
proof-of-principle. Our ALD has pledged support (read: funds) to hold
such workshops. The workshop in China has already been mentioned. Dave
said it is important to increase the sPHENIX name recognition with such
workshops (self-organized or otherwise) so that sPHENIX is getting
associated with the physics programs in question.

There are number of venues to strengthen our collabration with theorists
(taken from the slides verbatim):

- Yacine Mehtar-Tani joins BNL soon
-  JETSCAPE collaboration approaching code release; defining interface
with experiments (RIVET?)
- CERN Theory Institute organizing effort towards 2019 ECFA report (~LRP
equivalent) - Konrad Tyvoniuk
- Leaders of CERN effort recognize importance of coordinated effort and
mutual support
- Strengthen sPHENIX presence at workshops; organize dedicated meetings
when appropriate

Workshop suggestions (all need a convener, so if you are interested,
step up)

Jets in sPHENIX; RHIC predictions; new observables in sPHENIX

sPHENIX China workshop: focus on EMCAL physics, contributions to EMCAL
construction

Software/computing/tracking:
strategies for offline/online event tagging; algorithmic
improvements; tracking on alternative architectures; interaction
with BNL Computer Science Initiative

Takao suggested, in light of sPHENIX being the last HI experiment around
here, to see if there are observables that have been overlooked so far,
and if so, whether or not we could add those to our program and organize
such a workshop.

Chris said that BNL's Computer Science Initiative has sent out a call
for proposals. They largely have HPC (high Performance computing),
rather than HTC (high Throughput, what we are usually looking for), but
for interested folks there are possibilities highly parallel computing
(e.g. GPUs), different architectures, and so on.

Again, we need volunteers and conveners to make all that happen.


With that, we heard a suggestion from our spokespeople to appreciate
what we have accomplished in 2017, and to toast to a good new year 2018.

Happy New Year!

        Martin


-- 
Martin L. Purschke, Ph.D.        ;   purschke AT bnl.gov
                                 ;   http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/~purschke
                                 ;
Brookhaven National Laboratory   ;   phone: +1-631-344-5244
Physics Department Bldg 510 C    ;   fax:   +1-631-344-3253
Upton, NY 11973-5000             ;   skype: mpurschke
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