Exploring the strangeness dimension of the phase diagram of strongly-interacting matter

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The aim of this project is to explore the strangeness dimension of the phase diagram of strongly-interacting matter by combining theoretical and experimental efforts. Strange hadrons provide an unique possibility to penetrate into the properties of strange hot and dense matter created under such extreme conditions of high temperature as well as finite baryon and strange chemical potential. During the expansion phase of the hot fireball, the strange hyperons, which are produced in the overlapping region, interact with the nucleons and can form light hypernuclei. Moreover, they can travel to the spectator region and form there more heavier hyper-clusters. Strangeness and hypernuclei formation are among the main topics at the future experimental facilities as FAIR (Darmstadt, Germany) as well as at the Nuclotron and at NICA at JINR (Dubna, Russia). In spite of long lasting activities from both (the theoretical and the experimental) sides on the understanding of strangeness production and dynamics in heavy-ion collisions, there are still many open questions. In this proposal we will focus on some of them, in particular on: 1) production of strange mesons and (anti-)baryons in heavy-ion collisions at intermediate energies, especially its excitation function in pp, pA and AA collisions to elucidate the different production mechanisms, 2) the modification of the strange meson and hyperon properties in a hot and dense medium as created in heavy-ion collisions and how these changes can be verified experimentally, 3) the mechanism for hypernucleus formation and the understanding of the production of hypernuclei in the dense and hot environment and possibilities for their experimental observation. Our project will bring together the theorists from the GSI-Frankfurt group and three experimental groups from the CBM experiment at FAIR, the BM@N experiment at Nuclotron and the MPD experiment at NICA at JINR. In this respectthe main goals of the combined efforts are the following: 1) The GSI-Frankfurt theory group will develop a state-of-art microscopic n-body dynamical transport approach which will allow to explore hyperon as well as hypernucleus production and hence the new physics in the (third) strangeness dimension of the QCD phase diagram. 2) This model will be used by the experimental groups in Germany and Russia for simulations of strangeness and hypernuclei production to focus on the most prominent observables, kinematical regions as well as technical construction of detectors. 3) The project will help to establish the knowledge transfer in terms of common software, simulation codes, analysis tools - between theory and experiments and between the experiments at GSI and JINR.