The MAPS-based VerTeX (MVTX) detector has been recently installed into the center of the sPHENIX experiment at BNL’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in late March. The sPHENIX detector has been under commissioning and together with the STAR detector started RHIC’s 23rd-year operation.
The sPHENIX MVTX detector is based on Monolithic Active Pixel Sensors (MAPS) technology that was pioneered in the STAR’s HFT project and further developed for the ITS upgrade of the ALICE experiment at CERN. The physics goal of the MVTX detector is to conduct precision measurements of heavy quark production in order to characterize the detailed structure and properties of Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) matter created in heavy-ion collisions. LBNL scientists from the Relativistic Nuclear Collision (RNC) program led the detector construction, assembly, and survey over the past few years and completed it last summer. The detector was shipped to BNL last fall with all components intact.
The MVTX detector, the most inner subsystem, was the last component installed into the sPHENIX experiment with the help of physicists and engineers from BNL, LANL, LBNL and MIT in late March. The RHIC machine started cool-down in early May. This year’s RHIC run is planned to dedicate significant time for the sPHENIX detector commissioning and is scheduled to finish at the end of September. Fig. 1 shows NSD Staff Scientist Yuan Mei and postdoc Ho San Ko working on the assembly of the MVTX half barrel detector.