Onset of Deconfinement and Critical Point: NA49 and NA61/SHINE at the CERN SPS

TL;DR

This paper reviews the NA49 experiment's findings on the onset of deconfinement in heavy-ion collisions and discusses NA61's ongoing efforts to locate the critical point of strongly interacting matter at CERN SPS.

Contribution

It summarizes key results from NA49 on deconfinement and outlines NA61's new program targeting the critical point discovery in high-energy nuclear physics.

Findings

Observation of the onset of deconfinement in Pb+Pb collisions

Outline of NA61's physics program for critical point search

Review of future CERN SPS experimental plans

Abstract

This paper is dedicated to the memory of Jozsef Zimanyi one of the founders of the experiment NA49 at the CERN SPS. Firstly, the paper summarizes the main results of NA49 concerning observation of the onset of deconfinement in central Pb+Pb collisions at the low SPS energies. Secondly, it sketches the physics program of NA61 at the CERN SPS, the successor of NA49, which in particular aims to discover the critical point of strongly interacting matter. Finaly, a brief review of the future experimental programs in the CERN SPS energy range is given.