The STAR Forward Upgrade and Proton Spin

One of the goals of the STAR (Solenoidal Tracker at RHIC) detector, located at Brookhaven National Laboratory, is to analyze polarized proton-proton collisions in order to constrain the polarized gluon contribution and its contribution to the spin of the proton. This is one of the motivations for an upgrade to the STAR detector, consisting of a Forward Tracking System (FTS) and Forward Calorimeter System (FCS). These components will be located in the forward rapidities 2.8 < η < 4.2. This upgrade will provide more complete information than previously available at STAR in this region. The FCS will include not only an electromagnetic calorimeter (ECal), but also STAR’s first hadronic calorimeter (HCal). We will describe the design of these two calorimeters and the different steps in their assembly procedure, e.g., the installation of the light guides on the ECal and the construction of the scintillator plates for the HCal.