Recent Highlights from the PHENIX Heavy-Ion Program at RHIC

Abstract

Over the last decade it has been established that a quark-gluon plasma (QGP) is formed in ultrarelativistic A+A collisions at RHIC energies. In recent years, detector upgrades have enabled the detailed study of this hot and dense matter. Important probes, among others, are direct photons and heavy flavor observables. Although the RHIC d+Au program was originally undertaken to study initial state and cold nuclear matter effects, recent measurements at both RHIC (d+Au) and the LHC (p+Pb) have found evidence for collective phenomena in these small systems.