The results from data taken during the last several years at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) will be reviewed in the paper. Several selected topics that further our understanding of constituent quark scaling, jet quenching and color screening effect of heavy quarkonia in the hot dense medium will be presented. Detector upgrades will further probe the properties of Quark Gluon Plasma. Future measurements with upgraded detectors will be presented. The discovery perspectives from future measurements will also be discussed.
We present an overview of the recent abundant measurements for charm production at RHIC. The significant information of charm cross sections in different collision system at 200 GeV and charmed hadron freeze-out and flow properties extracted from these measurements are presented. The heavy flavor energy loss in the medium and heavy flavor related azimuthal correlations in heavy ion collisions are also discussed.
An overview of the experimental results on high-pt light hadron production and open charm production is presented. Data on particle production in elementary collisions are compared to next-to-leading order perturbative QCD calculations. Particle production in Au+Au collisions is then compared to this baseline.
Results from the PHENIX experiment for the first RHIC run with Au-Au collisions at a nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of 130 GeV are presented. The systematic variation with centrality of charged particle multiplicity, transverse energy, elliptic flow, identified particle spectra and yield ratios, and production of charged particles and neutral pions at high transverse momenta are presented. Results on two-pion correlations and electron spectra are also provided, along with a discussion of plans for the second run at RHIC.
Measuring the single transverse spin asymmetry $A_N$ for large $x_F$ Drell-Yan production provides the most robust test of our current theoretical understanding of transverse proton spin structure. This includes a measurement of the predicted sign change of the Sivers function in comparison to that found in SIDIS data. The first year of a feasibility test has been completed to define the requirements for measuring large $x_F$ Drell-Yan production at RHIC. The impact of colliding beams at a third IR at RHIC was found to be negligible and a rich jet-triggered data sample was acquired by AnDY in …
This is an overview of the results from the first 3 years of RHIC experiments. RHIC is a collider built to accelerate nuclei to center of mass energies of 200 GeV per nucleon for the study of QCD in bulk systems. The most important result so far is the observation of the suppression of high p$_T$ hadrons in central Au-Au collisions followed by the subsequent null experiment where the same suppression was not seen in deuteron-Au collisions. The observed suppression is a final state effect in which a large amount of energy is lost by the fast parton as it penetrates the medium. This observation,…
I review the latest heavy flavor measurements at RHIC experiments. Measurements from RHIC together with preliminary results from LHC offer us an opportunity to systematically study the sQGP medium properties. In the end, I will outlook a prospective future on precision heavy flavor measurements with detector upgrades at RHIC.
In this presentation, I discussed a) the charm total cross-section and its comparisons to measurements at other beam energies and pQCD calculations; b) the semileptonic decay of charmed hadrons and the sensitivity of non-photonic leptons to charm quark collective flow and freeze-out; c) semileptonic decayed electron spectrum at high transverse momentum, its comparison to FONLL in p+p and d+Au collisions, and heavy-quark energy loss in Au+Au collisions.
Recent results on high transverse momentum (pT) hadron production in p+p, d+Au and Au+Au collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) are reviewed. Comparison of the nuclear modification factors, $R_{dAu}(pT)$ and $R_{AA}(pT)$, demonstrates that the large suppression in central Au+Au collisions is due to strong final-state effects. Theoretical models which incorporate jet quenching via gluon Bremsstrahlung in the dense partonic medium that is expected in central Au+Au collisions at ultra-relativistic energies are shown to reproduce the shape and magnitude of the observed suppressio…
The PHENIX and STAR Collaborations at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider and ALICE, CMS, ATLAS and LHCb Collaborations at the Large Hadron Collider have measured the production of charmonium and bottonium states as well as open heavy flavor hadrons via their hadronic and semi-leptonic decays at mid-rapidity and in the semi-muonic decay channel at forward rapidity in pp, p--A and A--A collisions in an energy domain that ranges from $\sqrt{s}$ = 0.2 TeV to $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV in pp collisions and from $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$ = 0.2 TeV to $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$ = 5.02 TeV in A--A collisions. In this co…
Heavy-quark production provides a sensitive probe of the gluon structure of nucleons and its modication in nuclei. It is also a key probe of the hot-dense matter created in heavy-ion collisions. We will discuss the physics issues involved, as seen in quarkonia and open heavy-quark production, starting with those observed in proton-proton collisions. Then cold nuclear matter effects on heavy-quark production including shadowing, gluon saturation, energy loss and absorption will be reviewed in the context of recent proton-nucleus and deuteron-nucleus measurements. Next we survey the most recent …
A brief review of BRAHMS measurements of bulk particle production in RHIC Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200GeV$ is presented, together with some discussion of baryon number transport. Intermediate $p_{T}$ measurements in different collision systems (Au+Au, d+Au and p+p) are also discussed in the context of jet quenching and saturation of the gluon density in Au ions at RHIC energies. This report also includes preliminary results for identified particles at forward rapidities in d+Au and Au+Au collisions.
Ultra-peripheral collisions (UPCs) of ions allow us to study photonuclear and two-photon interactions at energies above those available at fixed target accelerators. For heavy ions, the couplings are large enough so that multi-photon interactions are possible, and higher order corrections are expected to be significant. In this writeup, I present some recent UPC results from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), and discuss some future prospects. I also draw parallels between UPC data and that expected at an electron-ion collider (EIC), and show how UPCs are a useful lead-in to EIC physi…
We have developed a silicon pixel detector to enhance the physics capabilities of the PHENIX experiment. This detector, consisting of two layers of sensors, will be installed around the beam pipe at the collision point and covers a pseudo-rapidity of | η| < 1.2 and an azimuth angle of | ϕ| ~ 2π. The detector uses 200 um thick silicon sensors and readout chips developed for the ALICE experiment. In order to meet the PHENIX DAQ readout requirements, it is necessary to read out 4 readout chips in parallel. The physics goals of PHENIX require that radiation thickness of the detector be minimized. …
With large acceptance and excellent particle identification, STAR is one of the best mid-rapidity collider experiments for studying high-energy nuclear collisions. The STAR experiment provides full information on initial conditions, properties of the hot and dense medium as well as the properties at freeze-out. In Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 200$ GeV, STAR's focus is on the nature of the sQGP produced at RHIC. In order to explore the properties of the QCD phase diagram, since 2010, the experiment has collected sizable data sets of Au+Au collisions at the lower collision energy region …
Elliptic flow is an interesting probe of the dynamical evolution of the dense system formed in the ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The elliptic flow dependences on transverse momentum, centrality, and pseudorapidity were measured using data collected by the PHOBOS detector, which offers a unique opportunity to study the azimuthal anisotropies of charged particles over a wide range of pseudorapidity. These measurements are presented, together with an overview of the analysis methods and a discussion of the results.
The PHENIX Experiment on the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) with its use of beams of polarized protons, provides a unique environment of hard scattering between gluons and quarks complementary to that provided by deep inelastic scattering (DIS). Polarized proton proton collisions can directly probe the polarized gluon and anti-quark distributions as the collisions couple the color charges of the participants. We will give a brief overview of the PHENIX Spin Program and we will report recent results of the many probes accessible to the PHENIX experiment.
Dilepton and direct photon measurements in heavy ion collisions provide access to the early stages of the collision. Dilepton continuum measurements at SPS and RHIC show an excess consistent with broadening of the rho meson spectral function as a result of hadronic interactions. Direct photon measurements at RHIC and the LHC show an excess of low $p_{T}$ photons over the expected yield. This excess has a large azimuthal anisotropy with respect to the collision plane. Understanding the direct photon excess and its anisotropy has become an outstanding question in the field of heavy ion physics. …
A brief overview of direct-photon measurements in p+p and Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV with the PHENIX experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) is given. Direct-photon yields for pT > 4 GeV/c and photon-hadron azimuthal correlations were determined with the aid of an electromagnetic calorimeter. By detecting e+e- pairs from the internal conversion of virtual photons direct-photon yields were measured between 1 < pT < 4 GeV/c. In Au+Au collisions thermal photons from a quark-gluon plasma (QGP) are expected to contribute significantly to the total direct-photon yield …
I will present a review of the field of Hanbury Brown-Twiss interferometry in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. The "HBT puzzle" is explored in detail, emphasizing recent theoretical attempts to understand the persisting puzzle. I also present recent experimental results on azimuthally sensitive HBT, HBT of direct photons, and some surprises in the comparison of HBT results from p+p and Au+Au collisions at RHIC.
Fluctuations of conserved quantities, such as baryon, electric charge and strangeness number, are sensitive observables in relativistic heavy-ion collisions to probe the QCD phase transition and search for the QCD critical point. In this paper, we review the experimental measurements of the cumulants (up to fourth order) of event-by-event net-proton (proxy for net-baryon), net-charge and net-kaon (proxy for net-strangeness) multiplicity distributions in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=7.7, 11.5, 14.5, 19.6, 27, 39, 62.4, 200$ GeV from the first phase of beam energy scan program at the Relat…
I have been asked to give an critical overview on the experimental results shown in the conference with a emphasis of what has been learned and the challenges that are ahead in trying to understand the physics of the strongly interacting quark-gluon plasma. I will not try to summarize all of the results presented, rather I will concentrate primarily on RHIC data from this conference. Throughout this summary, I will periodically review some of the previous results for those not familiar with the present state of the field.
A great deal of recent data on event-by-event fluctuation and correlation measurements has been released by several experiments at the SPS and RHIC. Recent results on charge fluctuations, balance functions in pseudorapidity, and average transverse momentum fluctuations will be reviewed. The results will be compared to various model predictions after examining contributions to each observable from known physics processes.
Main parameters of the FEL-RHIC collider are estimated. The physics search potential of this machine is illustrated using excitations of the ^{232}Th nucleus as an example. It is shown that, due to the tunability and monochromacity of FEL beam and high statistics, proposed collider will play an important role in the field of ''traditional'' nuclear physics.
These proceedings present a brief overview of the main results on jet-modifications in heavy ion collisions at RHIC. In heavy ion collisions, jets are studied using single hadron spectra and di-hadron correlations with a high-\pt{} trigger hadrons. At high pt, a suppression of the yields due to parton energy loss is observed. A quantitative confrontation of the data with various theoretical approaches to energy loss in a dense QCD medium is being pursued. First results from $γ$-jet events, where the photon balances the initial jet energy, are also presented and compared to expectations from mo…
The RHIC program was intended to identify and study the quark-gluon plasma formed in the collision of heavy nuclei. The discovery of the "perfect liquid" is an essential step towards the understanding of the medium formed in these collisions. Much of data relevant to this was provided by the study of "soft" observables, which involve many particles of low momentum produced in nearly every event, rather than high momentum particles produced in rare events. The main results related to soft physics at RHIC are discussed, as well as their implications for the physics of the LHC heavy ion program.
Potential near- and long-term physics opportunities with jets, heavy flavors and electromagnetic probes at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) are presented. Much new physics remains to be unveiled using these probes, due to their sensitivity to the initial high density stage of RHIC collisions, when quark-gluon plasma (QGP) formation is expected. Additional physics will include addressing deconfinement, chiral symmetry restoration, properties of the strongly-coupled QGP and a possible weakly-interacting QGP, color glass condensate in the initial state, and hadronization. To fully reali…
The polarized proton beams at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory provide a unique environment to observe hard scattering between gluons and quarks. The PHENIX experiment has recorded collisions at $\sqrt(s_{NN})=$200 GeV and 62.4 GeV to yield data which are complementary to those measured by deep inelastic scattering experiments. Polarized proton-proton collisions can directly probe the polarized gluon and anti-quark distributions as the collisions couple the color charges of the participants. The PHENIX detector is well suited to measure many final-state par…
Measurements of $π^0$, identified charged hadrons, direct-single-$γ$, direct single-$e^{\pm}$ and jets are expected to be important probes of the Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP) at LHC as they are at RHIC. Recent results from RHIC will be presented, with implications, possibly grave, for LHC. Issues of soft-physics, such as $E_T$ distributions, will be discussed with questions as to: whether the soft multipicity or sum-transverse energy ($E_T$), may be the only quantity at LHC to exhibit number of collision scaling? or whether the anisotropic flow ($v_2$) will exceed the hydrodynamic limit?
Production of W bosons in longitudinally polarized pp collisions provides an excellent tool to probe the flavor-dependence of sea quark polarizations in the polarized proton. Current status and future plans for the W physics program with the STAR detector at RHIC are presented along with remarks concerning our knowledge of the nature and origin of the partonic sea.
Results on physics at RHIC using outgoing leptons and photons will be presented from Au+Au collisions at nucleon-nucleon c.m. energies $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=130$ and 200 GeV and from p-p collisions at $\sqrt{s}=200$ GeV. Introduction and motivation will be presented both from the theoretical and experimental perspectives. Topics include open charm production via single $e^{\pm}$, $J/Ψ\to e^+ + e^-$, $μ^+ + μ^-$ and inclusive photon production.
The RHIC high energy collision of species ranging from p+p, p(d)+A to A+A provide access to the {small-x} component of the hadron wave function. The RHIC program has brought renewed interest in that subject with its ability to reach values of the parton momentum fraction smaller than 0.01 with studies of particle production at high rapidity. Furthermore, the use of heavy nuclei in the p(d)+A collisions facilitates the study of saturation effects in the gluonic component of the nuclei because the appropriate scale for that regime grows as A^1/3. We review the experimental results of the RHIC pr…
The STAR experiment at RHIC is a TPC-based, general purpose detector designed to obtain charged particle spectra, with an emphasis on hadrons over a large phase space. An electromagnetic calorimeter provides measurement of electrons, photons, pi-zeros and jets. Data-taking with Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s)= 200 GeV/c**2 begins in Fall 1999. The STAR experiment's investigation of techniques and signals using hard probes to study the high energy-density matter at RHIC and to search for quark-gluon plasma formation will be described.
A case is presented for compelling physics at a high luminosity RHIC II collider and a comprehensive new detector system to address this physics. The experimental focus is on detailed jet tomography of the quark gluon plasma (QGP), measuring gluon saturation in the nucleus, investigating the color glass condensate, measuring effects of the QCD vacuum on particle masses, determining the structure and dynamics within the proton, and possible new phenomena. The physics and detector capabilities are introduced.
The proposed sPHENIX detector at RHIC is being designed to study with unprecedented precision the nature of the Quark Gluon Plasma, or QGP, at RHIC through measurement of jets, jet correlations, and Y particles. To reach the goal of producing a high mass-resolution reconstruction of the Y(nS) states, a compact TPC covering pseudorapidities < |1.1| is under construction to provide sPHENIX with the necessary invariant mass resolution. Similar to the ALICE-TPC upgrade, the sPHENIX TPC design presently utilizes quadruple- GEM detectors. Utilizing novel zigzag patterned readout pads, a modified SAM…
The status of the physics of heavy ion collisions is reviewed based on measurements over the past 6 years from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The dense nuclear matter produced in Au+Au collisions with nucleon-nucleon c.m. energy $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV at RHIC corresponds roughly to the density and temperature of the universe a few microseconds after the `big-bang' and has been described as "a perfect liquid" of quarks and gluons, rather than the gas of free quarks and gluons, ``the quark-gluon plasma" as originally envisaged. The measurements and…
The observation of the strong suppression of high pT hadrons in heavy ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at BNL has motivated a large experimental program using hard probes to characterize the deconfined medium created. However what can be denoted as ``leading particle physics'' accessible at RHIC presents some limitations which motivate at higher energy the study of much more penetrating objects: jets. The gain in center of mass energy expected at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN will definitively improve our understanding on how the energy is lost in the syst…
Full jet reconstruction allows access to the parton kinematics over a large energy domain and can be used to constrain the mechanisms of energy loss in heavy-ion collisions. Such measurements are challenging at RHIC, due to the high-multiplicity environments created in heavy-ion collisions. In these proceedings, we report an overview of the results on full jet reconstruction obtained by the STAR experiment. Jet measurements in 200 GeV p+p show that jets are calibrated pQCD probes and provide a baseline for jet measurements in Au+Au collisions. Inclusive differential jet production cross sectio…
Electromagnetic and electroweak probes are the most versatile probes in the study of heavy-ion collisions. Produced at every stage in the evolution of QCD matter, its messengers are practically inert to the strongly interacting medium they travel through. In this contribution, I will discuss a selection of new results from experiments at the LHC, RHIC, and SIS facilities, spanning almost four orders of magnitude in beam energy. I will conclude with a brief overview of the experimental landscape in the near future.
I will present the latest results on particle identified spectra and two particle correlations at high transverse momentum measured with the STAR detector at RHIC. I will compare those measurements with the projected capabilities for the LHC using the ALICE detector. The effects of string fragmentation and quark recombination in the intermediate momentum range will be discussed in the context of hadron formation in proton-proton and Au-Au collisions, as well as energy loss mechanisms in the dense partonic phase. The necessity for gamma-jet and heavy quark jet measurements will be detailed base…
I review the present status of measurements at RHIC and suggest possible upgrades which will be necessary to answer some of the most critical questions in Relativistic Heavy Ion Physics.
These proceedings discuss recent jet measurements by the STAR experiment at RHIC to study jet substructure in p+p and jet quenching in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}}$ = 200 GeV. Furthermore, STAR's future plans for precision jet measurements with the upcoming data-taking periods in 2023-2025 are presented.
Ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions produce a high-temperature, thermalized system that may mimic the conditions present shortly after the big bang. This writeup will given an overview of early results from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), and discuss what we have learned about hot, strongly interacting nuclear systems. The thermal and chemical composition of the system will be discussed, along with observables that are sensitive to the early evolution of the system. I will also discuss the implications of the RHIC results for cosmic ray air showers.
New physics and detector concepts for a future pp and heavy ion program at the RHIC-II accelerator facility will be discussed. I will focus on hadronic observables which enable us to gain a better understanding on the hadronization from a sQGP and the chiral symmetry restoration in a sQGP. The ultimate question of how matter acquires mass can be addressed by this program in a complementary way to the Higgs search in high energy physics. The contributions of the RHIC program to the study of QCD will be discussed in detail.
At the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), key insights into the bulk properties of the hot and dense partonic matter arise from the study of azimuthal anisotropy (v_2) of the produced particles. The v_2 values indicate that the matter undergoes rapid thermalization and behaves hydrodynamically at low p_T. Furthermore, the quark scaling of v_2 for different particle species suggests that thermalization occurs at the quark level and that v_2 is the same for all quark flavors. Recently, higher order harmonic measurements (v_3, v_4) have shown the potential for insights into the medium's init…
Recent soft physics results from collisions of ultra-relativistic nuclei at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) operating at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) are reviewed. Topics discussed cover the Beam Energy Scan program with some emphasis on anisotropic particle flow.
The Solenoidal Tracker at RHIC (STAR) experiment utilizes its excellent mid-rapidity tracking and particle identification capabilities to study the emergent properties of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). The STAR heavy-ion program at vanishingly small baryon density is aimed to address questions about the quantitative properties of the strongly-interacting Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP) matter created in high energy collisions ($η/s$, $\hat{q}$, chirality, transport parameters, heavy quark diffusion coefficients ...). At finite baryon density, the questions concern the phases of nuclear matter (the QCD…
A new detector concept (R2D) is needed to harvest the unique physics opportunities at RHIC-II during the LHC era. This concept is based on a high granularity hermetic array of detectors featuring high momentum particle identification and superior resolution for photon and onium measurements. Most components of R2D can also be applied to future electron-ion interactions. Thus, R2D allows us to perform precision QCD-type measurements at RHIC-II and eRHIC.
We describe a physics program at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) with tagged forward protons. The program started with the proton-proton elastic scattering experiment (PP2PP), for which a set of Roman Pot stations was build. The PP2PP experiment took data at RHIC as a dedicated experiment at the beginning of RHIC operations. To expand the physics program to include non-elastic channels with forward protons, like Central Exclusive Production (CEP), Central Production (CP) and Single Diffraction Dissociation (SD), the experiment with its equipment was merged with the STAR experiment a…
Open heavy flavor and quarkonium are unique probes of the hot-dense medium produced in heavy-ion collisions. Their production in p+p collisions also provide important test of QCD. In this paper, we review the selected results on open heavy flavor and quarkonium in p+p and heavy-ion collisions achieved at RHIC. Physics implications are also discussed.
A selection of experimental results in high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions after five years of operation of the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) is presented. Emphasis is put on measurements that provide direct information on fundamental properties of high-density QCD matter. The new experimental opportunities accessible at LHC are introduced, in particular those that may help clarify some of the current open issues at RHIC.
I briefly describe the initial goals of relativistic nuclear collisions research, focusing on the LBL Bevatron/Bevalac facility in the 1970's. An early concept of high hadronic density fireball formation, and subsequent isentropic decay (preserving information as to the high density stage) led to an outline of physics observables that could determine the nuclear matter equation of state at several times nuclear ground state matter density. With the advent of QCD the goal of locating, and characterizing the hadron-parton deconfinement phase transformation suggested the need for higher $\sqrt{s}…
The STAR experiment has been delivering significant physics results for more than 20 years. Stable operation of the experiment was achieved by using a robust controls system based on the Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System (EPICS). Now an object-oriented approach with Python libraries, adapted for EPICS software, is going to replace the procedural-based EPICS C libraries previously used at STAR. Advantages of the new approach include stability of operation, code reduction and straightforward project documentation. The first two sections of this paper introduce the STAR experimen…
Precise and absolute beam polarization measurements are critical for the RHIC spin physics program. Because all experimental spin-dependent results are normalized by beam polarization, the normalization uncertainty contributes directly to final physics uncertainties. We aimed to perform the beam polarization measurement to an accuracy of $ΔP_{beam}/P_{beam} < 5%$. The absolute polarimeter consists of Polarized Atomic Hydrogen Gas Jet Target and left-right pairs of silicon strip detectors and was installed in the RHIC-ring in 2004. This system features \textit{proton-proton} elastic scattering …
STAR collected data in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s)=200 GeV with transverse and longitudinal beam polarizations during the initial running periods in 2002--2004 at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Results on the single transverse spin asymmetries in the production of high energy forward neutral pions and of forward charged hadrons will be presented. Data have been obtained for double longitudinal asymmetries in inclusive jet production in 2003 and 2004. These data provide sensitivity to the polarization of gluons in the proton. In the future, we aim…
We summarize the recent experimental results of heavy favor physics from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in Brookhaven National Lab (BNL) at Long Island, New York, USA.We will discuss the directly reconstructed open charm mesons as well as electrons from heavy favor hadron decays. The charm and bottom quark production cross-sections have also been measured. We will also discuss JPsi and Upsilon states in p+p and heavy ion collisions. The studies described here were carried out and reported by the STAR and PHENIX collaborations at RHIC.
Heavy ion collisions at RHIC energies (Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV) exhibit significant new features as compared to earlier experiments at lower energies. The reaction is characterized by a high degree of transparency of the collisions partners leading to the formation of a baryon-poor central region. In this zone, particle production occurs mainly from the stretching of the color field. The initial energy density is well above the one considered necessary for the formation of the Quark Gluon Plasma, QGP. The production of charged particles of various masses is consistent with …
These proceedings summarize my plenary talk at Quark Matter 2011 with a focus on the future perspectives of the low energy programs at RHIC, FAIR, NICA and CERN.
