The Compressed Baryonic Matter (CBM) Experiment at FAIR: Status and Plans

The Compressed Baryonic Matter (CBM) experiment is one of the major scientific pillars of the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR), which is expected to become operational in 2028-29. The goal of CBM is to explore the QCD phase diagram in the region of high baryon densities using nucleus-nucleus collisions in the energy range sqrt(s_NN) = 2.9 - 4.9 GeV. CBM will be capable of utilizing peak interaction rates of up to 10 MHz and an advanced triggerless data acquisition scheme, by which access is enabled to rare physics probes not studied before. This contribution will give an overview of the CBM physics goals among which the equation-of-state of dense nuclear matter, the possible phase transition from hadronic to partonic phase, and chiral symmetry restoration play major roles. The CBM physics performance in terms of (multi-) strange particle production, dilepton spectroscopy and collective flow will be discussed with focus on sensitivity to criticality and first order phase transitions. Plans to extend the physics program to proton induced reactions will be presented as well. In addition, the status of the detector and its sub-systems construction and commissioning will be described. This includes the measured performance of pre-series detectors in FAIR Phase-0 experiments, especially in the currently operated demonstrator mCBM at SIS18.