sPHENIX is a new detector at RHIC.

[Martin Purschke <purschke AT bnl.gov>]

 61st sPHENIX Fortnightly Meeting

( Meeting coordinates at https://indico.bnl.gov/event/5442/)


Dave opened with a brief summary from last week's collaboration meeting
in Florida. The meeting was 2.5 days long, and we discussed if we would
extend the next one by a day in order to have more time to discuss
things. It was was very productive meeting. A big thank-you to our host
Tony!

4 new institutions applied to join sPHENIX - the University of Sao
Paulo, the National Central University in China, the University of North
Carolina, and Sejong University. The IB voting closes next Tuesday (12/18).

Also on Tuesday will be an EC meeting starting at 5pm. One of the key
points will be the (detector) configuration of the INTT. (I asked - this
is not yet about the readout changes being discussed, see below). The
indico coordinates are https://indico.bnl.gov/event/5190/

News from the ALD meeting (Dave and Gunther) last Wednesday:

Discussion whether or not to use the submitted sPHENIX/EIC study as as
baseline to evaluate proposals. The process is not entirely clear and
will need more discussion. A longer exchange ensued, with several people
expressing deep frustration with both the process and current status,
which is that medium-energy funded groups cannot use those funds for
EIC/sPHENIX R&D (Abhay said he had not heard of such a restriction for
his group, although others said to be expressly prohibited from using
those funds.)

Our application to become a CERN recognized experiment has been received
by CERN, and a presentation by Gunther for the relevant committee
("REC") is scheduled for January.

Dave and Gunther also wrote up the information for the next RHIC bulletin.

Some info about the MVTX stave and readout unit procurements:
There appear to have been some teething pains with the recent transition
of the MVTX project into the sPHENIX project, which have been, or are
close to being, resolved. The plan is to purchase the staves and readout
units from CERN, and CERN expects to be paid at some point. Ed told us
that he submitted a letter to CERN pledging the payment as soon as
bureaucratic hurdles are resolved.

Fudan in China has, with endorsement from sPHENIX and the ALD, submitted
a letter proposing the participation in making more emcal modules for
sPHENIX to "MOST", the Ministry of Science and Technology in China. As a
general comment, Dave said that such letters are now subject to a more
thorough legal review and can take a few weeks to materialize.

We have a mailing list for job announcements. Card-carrying junior
members have automatically been subscribed to https://lists.bnl.gov/
mailman/listinfo/sphenix-jobs-l (others need to do that themselves). If
you have or learn of a job posting, please submit the information to the
spokespeople.

A dooodle poll for possible dates for a collaboration meeting in the
March time frame in Asia is coming soon.

It was noted that there is no official sPHENIX T-shirt yet. Maybe we can
hold a contest for the coolest design. If you have ideas, please speak
up, or submit your design proposal.



John Haggerty - Project news

We had a good collaboration meeting;

Lots of progress on various fronts, tracking, the INTT, and many other
items.

The north muon magnet piston, some 60 tons worth of steel, has been
removed from 1008.

7 oHCAL sectors received to date, stored in Bldg 912. Two more to come
this year.

36 out of 96 Emcal blocks for the "Sector 0" are produced. Sean is
working on preparing them for assembly. Some issues getting some
mechanical parts fabricated, being worked on.

A batch of HCAL tiles delivered to BNL and sent on to GSU for testing.

Some negotiations with Uniplast (the tile manufacturer) about several
contract options. Being worked on.

At the FSU meeting (with preparations before) we discussed a proposed
change in the readout for the INTT, using the FELIX card rather than the
FEM->DCM2->jSEB2 chain. John Kuczewski has so far demonstrated that the
ROCs can directly interface with the FELIX transceivers. On Thursday we
had a meeting between the extended DAQ group and the INTT - meeting
materials at https://indico.bnl.gov/event/5435/. We will evaluate the
cost impact and other pros and cons over the next couple of weeks.


John Lajoie - forward calorimetry

After discussion of JL, EK, Joe Osborne, and the EPPS16 crowd, the idea
of a forward calorimeter came up to measure prompt photons. Prompt
photons are a major ingredient in current nuclear PDFs, and a better
measurement can further constrain them.

John looked into the former E864 calorimeter, the remnants of which
exist in various places (for example the two FCALs, one of which is
stored in the tunnel close to 1008). One calorimeter block could be cut
into as many as 10 sPHENIX forward calorimeter modules with 20 radiation
lengths. It is unclear what the ownership of the former calorimeter is,
and if enough of the original blocks are still around to instrument both
north and south. 330 original blocks are needed to get enough smaller
modules to cover one side 1.4 <= \eta <= 4. Since E864 had 768 such
blocks, both sides could potentially be instrumented if enough of them
remain. John is confident that we can locate enough for one side at
least, although the tracking-down of most of the modules could be
significant work. Contributions are encouraged for the design of the
light guides (should be easier than for the Emcal barrel because of
relaxed space constraints), and simulations. Dennis indicated that he
might be interested in contributing to also cover the topic of flow
measurements. So far we saw simulations from SashaB for the expected
resolution of the calorimeter, which look encouraging. Next steps would
be the assembly of a prototype with different modules from SBU, and a
test beam to verify the simulations.


Abhay - Status of the EIC

Abhay presented previously shown slides about the EIC status. The slides
are linked from the indico page. Included are some slides about the
recently inaugurated Center for Frontiers in Nuclear Science (CFNS), a
joint SBU-BNL venture. Some highlights include the funding of post-doc
positions by the CFNS, more joint post-doc positions with other
institutions, and visitor support. There will also be a EIC/QCD summer
school  next year to train students. Abhay stressed that, although run
jointly with BNL, this is not necessarily a eRHIC-centric endeavor, and
collaboration and cooperation with JLab is encouraged.


Respectively submitted -

        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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