Highlights from the NA61/SHINE

Abstract

NA61/SHINE is a multipurpose fixed-target facility at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron. The main goals of the NA61/SHINE stronginteractions program are to discover the critical point of strongly interacting matter as well as to determine the properties of produced particles relevant for the study of the onset of deconfinement - the transition between the state of hadronic matter and the quark-gluon plasma. An analysis of hadron production properties is performed in nucleus-nucleus, proton-proton, and proton-nucleus interactions as a function of collision energy and size of the colliding nuclei to achieve these goals. The selected NA61/SHINE results from this program are presented. In particular, the latest results from different reactions p+p, Be+Be, Ar+Sc, and Pb+Pb on hadron spectra and fluctuations are discussed. The NA61/SHINE results are compared with worldwide experiments and predictions from various theoretical models, like EPOS, PHSD, UrQMD, and others.