Recent results from NA61/SHINE on spectra and correlations in p+p and Be+Be interactions at the CERN SPS

TL;DR

NA61/SHINE aims to locate the critical point of strongly interacting matter by analyzing spectra and fluctuations in p+p and Be+Be collisions at CERN SPS energies, providing new insights into hadron production and phase transition signals.

Contribution

This paper presents new experimental results on hadron spectra and fluctuations in p+p and Be+Be interactions, expanding the understanding of the onset of deconfinement and critical phenomena.

Findings

Comparison with NA49 data on Pb+Pb collisions

Observation of fluctuation patterns in small systems

Model predictions versus experimental results

Abstract

The problem of pinning down the critical point of strongly interacting matter still puzzles the community. One of the answers suspected to emerge in the near future will surely come from NA61/SHINE - a fixed-target experiment aiming to discover the critical point as well as to study the properties of the onset of deconfinement. This goal will be pursued by obtaining precise data on hadron production in proton-proton, proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus interactions in a wide range of system size and collision energy. This contribution presents new results on inclusive spectra of identified hadrons and on fluctuations in inelastic p+p and Be+Be interactions at the SPS energies. These are compared with the world data, in particular with the corresponding measurements of NA49 for central Pb+Pb collisions as well as with some model predictions.