The Hard Probes 2024 conference has been exceptionally successful for STAR, with many talks and posters on behalf of the collaboration. Tthe STAR Highlights talk by Isaac Mooney (Yale) gives a very nice overview. Chenliang Jin presented his results from the dielectron analyses from the BES Phase 2.

His results were shown in a couple of overview talks that followed, as well as in the physics motivation for the JPARC-HI efforts in Japan.

Under the direction of Wei Li, our heavy groups will build time-of-flight detectors for the CMS experiment at CERN. Our groups have vast experience with these types of detector using Multi-Gap Resistive Plain Chambers (MRPCs). What makes this project especially interesting is the use of a new technology, based on Low Gain Avalanche Diodes (LGADs). Accurate timing is all-important for time-of-flight detectors, and LGADs can deliver such timing with a precision of 30 picoseconds. What's more, these detectors are silicon based and thus can be very thin, possibly situated relatively close to the beam line without having too much of an effect on detectors that are mounted further away.

A Rice Media press release can be found at this link.