PHENIX, sPHENIX Experiment  / Brookhaven National Laboratory（BNL）

 PHENIX experiment, the Pioneering High Energy Nuclear Interaction eXperiment, is a high energy nuclear collision experiment at RICH, Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, in BNL, Brookhaven National Laboratory, since 2000. QCD (Quantum Chromodynamics), which consists of the standard model of elementary particle, predicts hadrons which interact with a strong force have a phase transition to new material phase "Quark-Gluon Plasma" (QGP) under extremely high temperature and high pressure. This unknown material phase is believed to exist immediately after the Big Bang, so it is an essential research topic to explore the universe, stars, and history of the evolution of the matter itself.
The purpose of this experiment is to investigate the physical aspects of QCD by reproducing QGP in the laboratory. More than 430 researchers, technicians, and graduate students participate in PHENIX from 11 countries (Brasil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Israel, Japan, Korea, Russia, Sweden, and the United States) and 43 research institutes.
 PHENIX detectors are currently upgraded to sPHENIX detector for state-of-art capabilities for studies. (Quoted from the homepages of KEK and sPHENIX)

Homepage of PHENIX
Homepage of PHENIX-Japan(Japanese page)
Homepage of sPHENIX