Speaker
Description
The NA60+ experiment has been proposed as a fixed-target experiment for the study of quark-gluon plasma (QGP) in heavy-ion collisions.
Its aim is a precise of study hard and electromagnetic processes at high baryochemical potential from 200 to 550 MeV at the CERN SPS. The experiment plans to perform measurements of thermal dimuons, charmed hadrons, strange particles and hypernuclei production in Pb-Pb collisions at center of mass energies ranging from 6 to 17 GeV.
The proposed experimental apparatus incorporates a vertex telescope positioned near the target and a muon spectrometer located downstream of a hadron absorber. The vertex telescope will feature multiple ultra-thin, large-area Monolithic Active Pixel Sensors (MAPS) embedded within a dipole magnetic field, marking a significant advancement in detector technology. The innovative design of the telescope enables precise tracking and identification of charged particles at the very core of the collision. The muon spectrometer, in turn, utilizes large-area gaseous detectors for muon tracking and a toroidal magnet based on a novel lightweight and general-purpose concept. This innovative combination of detection systems will enable NA60+ to make unprecedented measurements of rare and electromagnetic processes at high baryochemical potential, paving the way for a deeper understanding of the quark-gluon plasma.
A letter of intent was submitted at the end of 2022, with the goal of submitting a technical proposal by 2024 and start data taking in 2029.
In my talk, I will focus on the detailed description of the experimental apparatus and the ongoing R&D efforts associated. I will place particular emphasis to provide a comprehensive description of the vertex spectrometer. I will then give an overview on the physics program and the expected physics performances for hard and electromagnetic probes.
