CBM physics program and recent experimental developments

Abstract: The Compressed Baryonic Matter (CBM) fixed-target experiment is under construction at the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research. It aims to explore the phase structure of strong interaction (QCD) matter at high net-baryon densities and moderate temperatures using heavy-ion collisions in the center-of-mass energy range per nucleon pair $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}} =$ 2.7--4.9\,GeV. Equipped with fast and radiation-hard detector systems and an advanced triggerless data acquisition scheme, CBM will collect data at interaction rates of up to 10 MHz by performing online reconstruction and event selection. This will facilitate measurements of rare probes not accessible so far in this energy range, including multi-strange hadron production and their flow coefficients, high-order net-baryon cumulants, dileptons, as well as production of double-strange hypernuclei. The CBM detector is outlined and selected physics performance results based on realistic simulations are discussed.