Speaker
Marek Gaździcki
(CERN)
Description
The talk briefly presents history, status, and plans of heavy ion programmes at the CERN SPS. The first measurements started in 1886 and they were concluded twenty years ago by the discovery of a new state matter. The second programme started in 1999 and led to observations of signals of the onset of deconfinement. The currently on-going programme is motivated by a possibility to discover the critical point of strongly interacting matter. An attempt to formulate priorities for future measurements which can be conducted, in particular, at JINR NICA — charm quarks versus the onset of deconfinement and detailed study of the onset of fireball — closes the talk.
