Recent results from the NA61/SHINE strong interaction physics programme

TL;DR

The NA61/SHINE experiment investigates the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter by measuring hadron production in various collisions, revealing signals of deconfinement and exploring the critical point through energy-dependent spectra, yields, fluctuations, and correlations.

Contribution

This paper presents new experimental results on hadron spectra, yields, and fluctuation signals across different collision systems and energies, advancing the understanding of the QCD phase diagram.

Findings

Observation of the energy dependence of the 'horn', 'step', and 'kink' signals.

New data on fluctuations and correlations in nucleus-nucleus collisions.

Comparison of results with model predictions and other experiments.

Abstract

The main physics goals of the NA61/SHINE programme on strong interactions are the study of the properties of the onset of deconfinement and the search for signatures of the critical point of strongly interacting matter. For this purpose a scan of the two dimensional phase diagram ($T$-$\mu_{B}$) is being performed at the SPS by measurements of hadron production in nucleus-nucleus collisions as a function of collision energy and system size. This contribution presents intriguing results on the energy dependence of hadron spectra and yields in inelastic p+p and centrality selected Be+Be and Ar+Sc collisions. In particular, the energy dependence of the signals of deconfinement, the "horn", "step" and "kink", and new results on fluctuations and correlations are shown and compared with the corresponding data of other experiments and model predictions.