Decoding the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter

Abstract 

One of the ultimate goals of current experimental and theoretical studies of strongly interacting matter is to unravel its phase structure and the quest for the critical point, at which the matter undergoes a second-order chiral phase transition. Studies of such matter, created in head-on collisions of heavy nuclei, should allow to pin down the mechanisms that govern the phase transition between partonic and hadronic phases. Fluctuations of conserved charges, like baryon number, strangeness, electric charge have been identified as promising observables for probing criticality in strongly interacting matter. In this presentation I will show the status of the exploration of the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter, and its relation to fluctuations of identified particles. The focus will be on the comparison of experimental measurements with the corresponding theoretical calculations. Next, after presenting experimental techniques for particle identification, fluctuation measurements, collision centrality selection and related challenges, as well as latest measurements from different experimentswill be discussed. In the outlook, future research directions at FAIR of the experiments HADES and CBM, related to fluctuations and correlations of identified particles, will be given.