Physics & Astronomy PAN Seminar

Prof. J. Lajoie, Harmon-Ye Professor of Physics, Iowa State University

The sPHENIX detector currently under construction at Brookhaven National Laboratory's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) is designed to significantly advance studies of the microscopic nature of nuclear matter. The experiment incorporates full azimuth vertexing, tracking, and a complete set of electromagnetic and hadronic calorimeters over the pseudorapidity range |η| < 1.1. This powerful detector system is coupled with a high rate DAQ in order to deliver unprecedented data sets enabling a wide range of jet measurements at RHIC. sPHENIX has an extensive a multi-year physics program planned which includes Au+Au, polarized p+p and p+Au collisions. In particular, the use of jets as a probe in p+p/p+A and e+A collisions allows access to the interaction of the hard-scattered partons with the nuclear environment and is sensitive to a wide range of scales. Measurements of jets and jet substructure in these systems will provide unprecedented access not only to nuclear PDFs and saturation, but spin-orbit correlations in the nucleon through measurements of the Sivers and Collins asymmetries and how these observables can be modified in a nucleus. The Electron Ion Collider (EIC), to be built by JLab and BNL, will be unique in colliding polarized electrons off polarized protons and light nuclei, providing the capability to study multi-dimensional tomographic images of protons and nuclei, and collective effects of gluons in nuclei. In this talk I will both present an overview of jet and jet substructure measurements in sPHENIX at RHIC and highlight the complementarity between p+p/p+A collisions at RHIC and e+A collisions at the future EIC.

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