ePIC - Leveraging the EIC on Day 1

The broad and compelling science program of the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) is finding worldwide endorsement and excitement. This is reflected in the rapidly growing ePIC collaboration, formed in 2022-2023, which aims to realize the primary experiment at the EIC. The collaboration has over 850 members from more than 173 institutions around the world. Over the last two years, there has been excellent progress in the design of the experiment, and the collaboration is working jointly with the EIC Project on the Technical Design Report of the detector.

In my presentation, I will summarize the status and planning for the ePIC experiment, describing the design of the highly-integrated, multi-purpose detector with its innovative technology choices, including streaming data readout and processing to maximize its science reach. I will present the current best knowledge on the run schedule at the start of the operations phase of the EIC and outline what the ePIC experiment will be able to deliver as initial steps to accomplish the EIC science program and shape the future of the field.