Conceptual Design Report for a Fast Muon Trigger

Abstract

This document is a Conceptual Design Report for a fast muon trigger for the PHENIX experiment that will enable the study of flavor separated quark and anti-quark spin polarizations in the proton. A powerful way of measuring these polarizations is via single spin asymmetries for W boson production in polarized proton-proton reactions. The measurement is done by tagging W{sup +} and W{sup -} via their decay into high transverse momentum leptons in the forward directions. The PHENIX experiment is capable of measuring high momentum muons at forward rapidity, but the current online trigger does not have sufficient rejection to sample the rare leptons fromW decay at the highest luminosities at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). This Report details the goals, design, R&D, and schedule for building new detectors and trigger electronics to use the full RHIC luminosity to make this critical measurement. The idea for W boson measurements in polarized proton-proton collisions at RHIC was first suggested by Jacques Soffer and Claude Bourrely in 1995. This prompted the RIKEN institute in Japan to supply funds to build a second muon arm for PHENIX (south muon arm). The existence of both a north and south muon arm makes it possible to utilize a Z{sup 0} sample to study and control systematic uncertainties which arise in the reconstruction of high momentum muons. This document has its origins in recommendations made by a NSAC Subcommittee that reviewed the U.S. Heavy Ion Physics Program in June 2004. Part of their Recommendation 1 was to 'Invest in near-term detector upgrades of the two large experiments, PHENIX and STAR'. In Recommendation 2 the subcommittee stated '- detector improvements proceed at a rate that allows a timely determination of the flavor dependence of the quark-antiquark sea polarization through W-asymmetry measurements' as we are proposing here. On September 13, 2004 DOE requested from BNL a report articulating a research plan for the RHIC spin physics program. The document was submitted to DOE on January 31, 2005. It pointed out that one of three top priorities for the program lies in the clean and elegant measurement of the quark and anti-quark polarizations sorted by quark flavor through the parity-violating production of W bosons