The Detector Development and Physics Program in sPHENIX Experiment at RHIC

The sPHENIX experiment at RHIC will collect high statistics proton-proton, proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus data, starting in the early 2020's. The sPHENIX capabilities enable state-of-the-art studies of jet modification, upsilon suppression and open heavy flavor production to probe the microscopic nature of the strongly-coupled Quark Gluon Plasma, and will allow a broad range of cold QCD studies. The sPHENIX detector will provide precision vertexing, tracking and electromagnetic and hadronic calorimetry in the central pseudorapidity region |η| < 1.1, with full azimuth coverage, at the full RHIC collision rate, delivering unprecedented data sets for hard probe tomography measurements at RHIC. In this talk, we will present a brief overview of the sPHENIX detector design with emphasis on calorimetry. The novel design of the sPHENIX calorimeters includes a tungsten/scintillating fiber electromagnetic calorimeter and two steel/scintillating tile hadronic calorimeter sections. The calorimeter has been optimized for upsilon and jet measurements in the high multiplicity environment of heavy-ion collisions. The design has been simulated in detail using GEANT4, and the simulations have extensively vetted against results obtained from the T-1044 test beam facility at FNAL. Both simulation data and test beam data, and the resulting jet physics performance, will be presented in this talk.