Recent results and the future of the NA61/SHINE strong interactions program

Abstract

NA61/SHINE is a fixed target experiment at the CERN Super-Proton- Synchrotron. The main goals of the experiment are to discover the critical point of strongly interacting matter and to study the properties of the onset of deconfinement. In order to reach these goals, the collaboration studies hadron production properties in nucleus–nucleus, proton–proton and proton–nucleus interactions. In this paper, recent results on particle production in p+p interactions, as well as Be+Be and Ar+Sc collisions in the SPS energy range, are reviewed. The results are compared with available world data. The future of the NA61/SHINE scientific program is also presented.