NA61/SHINE Experiment—Program beyond 2020

Ludwik Turko

doi:10.3390/particles1010024

Abstract

The fixed-target NA61/SHINE experiment (SPS CERN) looks for the critical point (CP) of strongly interacting matter and the properties of the onset of deconfinement. It is a scan of measurements of particle spectra and fluctuations in proton–proton, proton–nucleus, and nucleus–nucleus interactions as a function of collision energy and system size. This gives unique possibilities to researching critical properties of the dense hot hadronic matter created in the collision process. New measurements and their objectives, related to the third stage of the experiment after 2020, are presented and discussed here.

Highlights

The NA61/SHINE, Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) Heavy Ion and Neutrino Experiment, is the continuation and extension of the NA49 [1,2] measurements of hadron and nuclear fragment production properties in fixed-target reactions induced by hadron and ion beams
The strong interaction program of NA61/SHINE is devoted to studying the onset of deconfinement and search for the critical point (CP) of hadronic matter, related to the phase transition between hadron gas (HG) and quark-gluon plasma (QGP)
The observed rapid change of hadron production properties that starts when moving from Be + Be to Ar + Sc collisions can be interpreted as the beginning of the creation of large clusters of strongly interacting matter—the onset of fireball

Summary

Introduction

The NA61/SHINE, Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) Heavy Ion and Neutrino Experiment, is the continuation and extension of the NA49 [1,2] measurements of hadron and nuclear fragment production properties in fixed-target reactions induced by hadron and ion beams It has used a similar experimental fixed-target setup as NA49 (Figure 1), but with an extended research program. Collected Ar + Sc and Xe + La data are being analyzed to provide further information

Onset of deconfinement

Specific Research Goals

Vertex magnets