Speaker
Description
Subthreshold pion production in heavy-ion collisions provides unique insight into high-density nuclear matter and multi-nucleon dynamics. While neutral pion creation in proton-proton collisions requires over 280 MeV, nuclear collisions achieve this at much lower energies—down to 25 MeV/nucleon—thanks to Fermi motion and collective effects, which remain incompletely understood. The SUPER experiment directly addresses these questions through $^{12}$C+$^{12}$C collisions at 25–60 MeV/nucleon. Prototype beam tests at RARiS, using a 3×3 CsI(Tl) crystal matrix, confirmed reliable high-energy photon detection and demonstrated the SUPER DAQ system's high stability and precision. The upcoming phase will deploy a 768-channel detector for the first full-scale experiment (E610) at RCNP. This talk will provide an update on the SUPER.