R&D on long-strip MRPC
Multi-gap Resistive Plate Chamber (MRPC), which has excellent performance and relatively low cost per channel, is a good candidate for Time-of-Flight (TOF) system in modern high energy physics experiments. A new kind of MRPC, Long-strip MRPC (LMRPC) with 50 cm × 2.5 cm strips, was tested at GSI-FOPI with secondary beam. The resets show that this LMRPC prototype can achieve 60 to 70 ps σ time resolution and greater than 97% detecting efficiency. The cross talk between readout strips is less than 2%. The measured spatial resolution along the strips is about 0.36 cm σ.
The compressed baryonic matter experiment at FAIR
The Compressed Baryonic Matter (CBM) experiment will be one of the major scientific pillars of the future Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) in Darmstadt. The goal of the CBM research program is to explore the QCD phase diagram in the region of high baryon densities using high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions. This includes the study of the equation-of-state of nuclear matter at high densities, and the search for the deconfinement and chiral phase transitions. The CBM detector is designed to measure both bulk observables with large acceptance and rare diagnostic probes such as charmed particles and vector mesons decaying into lepton pairs.
Strangeness in neutron stars
It is generally agreed that the tremendous densities reached in the centres of neutron stars provide a high-pressure environment in which numerous novel particle processes are likely to compete with each other. These processes range from the generation of hyperons to quark deconfinement to the formation of kaon condensates and H-matter. There are theoretical suggestions of even more exotic processes inside neutron stars, such as the formation of absolutely stable strange quark matter, a configuration of matter even more stable than the most stable atomic nucleus, iron. In the latter event, neutron stars would be largely composed of pure quark matter, eventually enveloped in a thin nuclear crust. No matter which physical processes are actually realized inside neutron stars, each one leads to fingerprints, some more pronounced than others though, in the observable stellar quantities. This feature combined with the unprecedented progress in observational astronomy, which allows us to see vistas with remarkable clarity that previously were only imagined, renders neutron stars nearly ideal probes for a wide range of physical studies, including the role of strangeness in dense matter.