Nose-cone calorimeter: PHENIX forward upgrade

PHENIX is a high rate experiment efficient at measuring rare processes, but has limited acceptance in azimuth and pseudorapidity (η). The Nose Cone Calorimeter (NCC), a W–Si sampling calorimeter in the region of 0.9<η<3, is one of the upgrades which will significantly increase coverage in both azimuth and pseudorapidity. The NCC will expand PHENIX’s precision measurements of electromagnetic probes in η, reconstruct jets, perform a wide scope of correlation measurements, and enhance triggering capabilities. The detector will significantly contribute to measurements of γ-jet correlations, quarkonia production, and low-x nuclear structure functions. This report discusses details of the detector design and its performance concerning a sample of the physics topics which will benefit from the NCC. In view of recent funding difficulties, outlook of the activities is discussed.