Relativistic Heavy Ion Corridor (RHIC), the premier nuclear physics research facility run by the US Department of Energy (DOE), at Brookhaven National Laboratory, began its final year of business with 25th grade.
Since its first experiment in 2000, Rhic has been at the forefront of exploring fundamental aspects of matter, bringing together the golden nuclei at almost speed to replicate the extreme conditions that exist immediately after the Big Bang.
This year’s business marks a significant milestone as Rhic physicists aim to research one of their primary objectives: Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP).
This unique state of matter, composed of quarks and gluons, existed in the early universe before the formation of protons and neutrons. Rhic’s ability to create and analyze QGPs provides invaluable insights into the properties of nuclear energy under extreme conditions.
25: The final push of discovery
At Run 25, scientists will leverage all the technological advancements and data collection strategies developed over the past 25 years to improve their understanding of QGP.
This includes research on particle jets, high-energy collisions, and new detection methods to achieve unprecedented accuracy in their discoveries.
This year’s top priority experiment will focus on a gold collision at 200 billion evolts (GEV), which is scheduled to run until early June.
The team will assess data collection progress mid-year to determine whether additional types of conflicts are feasible among the available funds.
An important aspect of Run 25 is also accelerator physics experiments (vertices) that are conducted biweekly over 15-hour sessions to improve Rhic’s performance and contribute to future Electron-Ion Collider (EIC).
Throughout the summer, scientists will focus on improving accelerator performance, including increased beam luminosity and improved collision conditions.
These enhancements help to ensure that the collected data is of the highest quality and provide deeper insight into QGP’s behavior.
Star Experiment: Solve the Mysteries of QGP
Since its inception, Star Detector has been the foundation of research efforts in relativistic heavy ion corridors and has undergone continuous upgrades to enhance data collection.
Over the past two years alone, the star has won 8 billion high quality gold gold collision events and plans to add 10 billion at 25.
By utilizing advanced triggers (sensors) that analyze collision characteristics in real time, scientists collect enriched datasets with high-energy particles.
This facilitates a multimodal analysis approach, allowing researchers to examine multiple variables simultaneously, leading to more comprehensive insights into the global properties of QGP.
Improved Star’s particle tracking capabilities allow physicists to observe collision events more accurately, allowing them to improve temperature, viscosity, and behavioral measurements of QGP under extreme conditions.
These findings help bridge the gap between theoretical predictions and experimental observations, paving the way for a deeper understanding of nuclear material.
Sphenix: Unlocks the new frontier of nuclear physics
The Sphenix detector, which began operation in 2023, is fully deployed at Run 25 and will study QGP with unprecedented accuracy.
The team aims to collect data from 50 billion collision events, complementing high-energy experiments conducted on large European hadron colliders (LHCs).
The Sphenix is equipped with advanced particle tracking capabilities, along with the first barrel hadronic calorimeter of the relativistic heavy ion corridor that allows for comprehensive jet reconstruction.
This technique allows scientists to identify heavy quark particles and study interactions within QGP. By capturing and analyzing high-energy jets, researchers hope to provide a better understanding of how QGP corrects energy loss mechanisms.
Studies of heavy quarks such as bottoms and charm quarks provide important insights into the properties of QGP.
These particles are produced at the first moment of a collision and traverse the plasma as they evolve, providing a unique probe for the density, temperature and ability of the energy-consuming medium.
By comparing RHIC results with data from high energy collisions in LHC, physicists can map how QGP works over different temperature ranges.
Vertex research paves the way for electron ion corridors
As relativistic heavy ion corriders prepare for the final year, Apex Studies will focus on addressing the key challenges of future electron ion corriders built using RHIC components along with new electronic accelerator technologies.
Scientists conduct experiments that maintain beam stability, minimize internal scattering, and investigate beam interaction dynamics to improve accelerator performance.
These studies are conducted in highly efficient time slots for short and play a fundamental role in optimizing the future operations of EICs, such as:
Beam Dynamics: Increases beam stability, reduces scattering and maintains collision speed. Detector Optimization: Test new methods to improve the efficiency and accuracy of data collection. Energy Loss Research: Improve your understanding of how high-energy particles interact with QGP.
These efforts ensure that Rhic’s legacy expands beyond its final execution and provides valuable knowledge to the next generation of colliders.
The lasting impact of Rhic and the transition to EIC
The final run of Rhic means the conclusion of a historical chapter in nuclear physics, but its legacy is well beyond 2025.
The knowledge, skills and expertise gained over the past quarter century will serve as the basis for future discoveries in EIC.
Many of the innovations developed with RHIC, including Hadronic Calorimeters, Advanced Pixel sensors, and streaming read data acquisition systems, are reused for use in EIC experiments.
These advances have already significantly improved measurement accuracy and will continue to play an important role in future research.
The transition from RHIC to EIC represents the evolution of nuclear physics, moving from the study of high-temperature nuclear material in QGP to the investigation of cold nuclear material using high-energy electrons.
This allows scientists to investigate the internal structure of protons and neutrons with unparalleled accuracy and answer basic questions about the nature of matter and the forces that combine them.
As EIC construction begins, physicists continue to analyze the vast amount of data collected with RHIC. This ensures that collider’s impact on nuclear science will last for the next decade.
In the upcoming era of Rhic’s closing experiments and electron ion corridors, nuclear physicists stand on the cliff of an era of new discoveries.
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