16th Workshop on Critical Point and Onset of Deconfinement

Apr 13, 2026, 8:00 AM → Apr 17, 2026, 6:00 PM Europe/Zurich

503/1-001 - Council Chamber (CERN)

Maja Mackowiak-Pawlowska (Warsaw University of Technology (PL)), Roberta Arnaldi (Universita e INFN Torino (IT)), Alexander Philipp Kalweit (CERN), Andrzej Krzysztof Rybicki (Polish Academy of Sciences (PL)), Elena Gianolio (CERN), Anne Lissajoux (CERN), Urs Wiedemann (CERN), Marek Gazdzicki (Jan Kochanowski University (PL)), Enrico Scomparin (INFN Torino (IT))

 

The workshop aims to bring together theorists and experimentalists engaged in exploring the QCD phase structure and the properties of strongly interacting matter at high net-baryon densities. The program will consist exclusively of plenary sessions, ensuring a common forum for all participants and providing ample time for in-depth discussions, collaborative exchanges, and forward-looking perspectives.

The scientific agenda will cover a broad range of key topics, including:

• Critical Point

• Phase Transition

• Deconfined Matter

• Hadronization

• Compact Stars

• Future experimental facilities and detectors
  

We look forward to welcoming you to CERN, and we gratefully acknowledge the support of our conference sponsor.

   

cpod2026_poster.pdf

Mon, April 13

9:00 AM → 9:10 AM Welcome

Conveners: Maja Mackowiak-Pawlowska (Warsaw University of Technology (PL)), Urs Wiedemann (CERN)

cpod26-welcome.pdf

9:10 AM → 10:40 AM Session 1: Experimental Overviews

Convener: Tetyana Galatyuk

9:10 AM ALICE overview

Speaker: Swati Saha (IIT- Indian Institute of Technology (IN))

ALICE_overview_CPOD2026_SwatiSaha.pdf

9:40 AM HADES overview

Speaker: Marvin Nabroth

HADES_Overview_Talk_CPOD2026_final.pdf

10:10 AM NA61 overview

Speaker: Seweryn Kowalski (University of Silesia (PL))

News from NA61_CPOD.pdf

10:40 AM → 11:00 AM Coffee Break

11:00 AM → 12:30 PM Session 2: Experimental Overviews

Convener: Enrico Scomparin (INFN Torino (IT))

11:00 AM STAR overview

Speaker: Dr Fan Si (Heidelberg University (DE))

FanSi_CPOD2026.pdf

11:30 AM CBM overview

Speaker: Piotr Gasik (GSI - Helmholtzzentrum fur Schwerionenforschung GmbH (DE))

gasik_CPOD26.pdf

gasik_CPOD26.pdf

gasik_CPOD26.pptx

12:00 PM NA60/DiCE overview

Speaker: Giacomo Alocco (Universita e INFN, Torino (IT))

NA60+_DiCE_CPOD.pdf

2:00 PM → 3:20 PM Session 3: Experimental Overviews

Convener: Marek Gazdzicki (Jan Kochanowski University (PL))

2:00 PM Physics opportunities for fixed target experiments at EIC.

Speaker: Charles Joseph Naim

CPOD_NAIM.pdf

2:20 PM Probes of collectivity in large and small systems with ATLAS

Speaker: Patrycja Anna Potepa (AGH University of Krakow (PL))

CPOD2026-Slides.pdf

2:40 PM CMS overview

Speaker: Dr Georgios Krintiras (The University of Kansas (US))

CPOD_GKK.pdf

3:00 PM LHCb overview

Speaker: Imanol Corredoira (Université Paris-Saclay (FR))

CPOD_LHCb_icorredo_v2.pdf

3:20 PM → 3:50 PM Coffee Break

3:50 PM → 5:50 PM Session 4: Phase transition

Convener: Alexander Philipp Kalweit (CERN)

3:50 PM QCD phase structure from Lattice QCD

Speaker: Jana N. Guenther (University of Wuppertal)

talk_guenther_CPOD.pdf

4:20 PM FRG approach to the QCD phase diagram

Speaker: Prof. Wei-jie Fu (Dalian University of Technology)

Fu-CPOD2026.pdf

4:50 PM Bridging Theory/Phenomenology and Experiment in Fluctuation Studies

Speaker: Dr Anar Rustamov (GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH)

Rustamov_CPOD_2026.pdf

5:20 PM Quarkyonic matter

Speaker: Larry McLerran

quarkyonic_cpod.pdf

quarkyonic_cpod.pptx

5:50 PM → 6:50 PM Reception

Tue, April 14

9:00 AM → 10:40 AM Session 5: Phase transition

Convener: Steffen Bass (Duke University)

9:00 AM Three regimes/phases of QCD at high T, their symmetries and Nc scaling

Speaker: Leonid Glozman

cern2026.pdf

9:20 AM Bubble Nucleation in an Expanding Supercooled Quark–Gluon Plasma with a Critical-Point Equation of State

Speaker: Noriyuki Sogabe

CPOD_CERN_v2.pdf

CPOD_CERN_v2_with_animation.pptx

9:40 AM Supercooled Goldstones at the QCD chiral phase transition

Speaker: Dr Aleksas Mazeliauskas

Mazeliauskas_CPOD_2026_final.pdf

10:00 AM Superfluid dynamics of the QCD chiral phase transition

Speaker: Jannis Gebhard (Heidelberg University)

Gebhard_Superfluid_CPOD.pdf

10:20 AM Dissecting the moat regime at low energies

Speaker: Shi Yin (Institute for Theoretical Physics, Justus Liebig University Giessen)

Moat Regime - CPOD.pdf

slide

10:40 AM → 11:00 AM Coffee Break

11:00 AM → 12:40 PM Session 6: Deconfined Matter

Convener: Johanna Stachel (Heidelberg University (DE))

11:00 AM Transport properties from lattice QCD

Speaker: Dibyendu Bala (Bielefeld University)

CPOD_Dibyendu.pdf

11:30 AM HRG models

Speaker: Peter Braun-Munzinger (GSI - Helmholtzzentrum fur Schwerionenforschung GmbH (DE))

talk_pbm_cpod2026.pdf

12:00 PM Interplay of Electromagnetic Fields and Baryon Diffusion in Directed Flow Splitting

Speaker: Mr Tribhuban Parida (AGH UST Krakow)

Tribhuban_Parida_AGH_CPOD26.pdf

12:20 PM Towards Physics-Informed Parameterization of QCD EoS

Speaker: Dr Yi Yin (Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen))

AI-EoS_YiYin_CPOD_2026.pdf

2:00 PM → 3:40 PM Session 7: Critical Point

Convener: Nu Xu (Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (US))

2:00 PM Non-Monotonicity of pT Correlations in Au + Au Collisions at RHIC-STAR

Speaker: Mr Rutik Manikandhan (University of Houston)

Rutik_CPOD_2026.pdf

2:20 PM State of the art in fluctuation dynamics theory

Speaker: Prof. Gokce Basar (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)

CPOD-26.pdf

2:50 PM MUSES: results on the critical point

Speaker: Dr Johannès Jahan (University of Houston - Department of Physics)

JJAHAN-CPOD_2026.pdf

3:20 PM Unveiling QCD Criticality in Rapidity Scan via Cross-Cumulant

Speaker: Jianing Li

CPODJianing_Li.pdf

3:40 PM → 4:10 PM Coffee Break

4:10 PM → 4:50 PM Session 8: Compact Stars

Convener: David Blaschke

4:10 PM Probing Three-Body Baryonic Interactions via Triplet Femtoscopy at STAR

Speaker: Ke Mi (University of Chinese Academy of Sciences / Central China Normal University)

CPOD_threebody_kmi_upload.pdf

4:30 PM Relating the onset density of quark deconfinement in neutron stars and heavy ion collisions

Speaker: Oleksii Ivanytskyi (University of Wroclaw)

Ivanytskyi_CPOD2026.pdf

4:50 PM → 5:40 PM Session 9: Hadronisation

Convener: David Blaschke

4:50 PM Connecting neutron stars to heavy-ion collisions theory

Speakers: Agnieszka Sorensen (Institute for Nuclear Theory), Agnieszka Sorensen (University of Washington)

ASorensen_2026.04.14_CPOD.pdf

5:20 PM Isospin symmetry violation measurements by NA61/SHINE

Speaker: Andrzej Krzysztof Rybicki (Polish Academy of Sciences (PL))

Rybicki_CPOD2026a.pdf

Wed, April 15

9:00 AM → 10:40 AM Session 10: Critical Point

Convener: Peter Braun-Munzinger (GSI - Helmholtzzentrum fur Schwerionenforschung GmbH (DE))

9:00 AM CP and 1st-Order Phase Boundary: theory overview

Speakers: Jamie Karthein (MIT), Dr Jamie Karthein (MIT)

9:30 AM Experimental overview of net-proton fluctuations measurements

Speaker: Xin Dong

10:00 AM E-by-E fluctuations of proton and light nuclei numbers measured at HADES

Speaker: Marvin Nabroth

10:20 AM Relative particle yield fluctuations in Au+Au collisions at RHIC BES-II

Speaker: Ashish Pandav

10:40 AM → 11:10 AM Coffee Break

11:10 AM → 12:50 PM Session 11: Phase transition

Convener: Dr Anar Rustamov (GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH)

11:10 AM Searching for echoes of criticality in OO collisions with ALICE

Speaker: Mario Ciacco (Universita and INFN Torino (IT))

2026-04-13-CIACCO_CPOD2026-8.pdf

11:30 AM News on (charged and neutral) hadron production in central nucleus-nucleus collisions from NA61/SHINE at the CERN SPS

NA61/SHINE is a multipurpose fixed-target experiment located at the CERN SPS. One of its main goals is to study the onset of deconfinement and the properties of strongly interacting matter. For this purpose, a unique two-dimensional scan in collision energy (√sNN = 5.1 − 16.8/17.3 GeV) and system size was performed.
Results on hadron spectra produced in nucleus-nucleus collisions, including the recent results for the charged hadrons produced in central Xe+La collisions, which completes the two-dimensional scan, and Λ baryons in central Ar+Sc collisions will be presented. The kinematic distributions and the measured multiplicities of identified hadrons will be compared with NA49 Pb+Pb results, as well as with available world data. The obtained results, particularly the K⁺/π⁺, Λ/π, and total strangeness-to-pion ratios, are crucial for understanding the phenomena of the onset of deconfinement and the onset of fireball, which is one of the main aims of the strong interaction program of the NA61/SHINE collaboration.
Additionally, a comparison of proton rapidity spectra in nucleus-nucleus collisions from NA61/SHINE and NA49 will be presented, providing a complete picture of the energy and system size dependence of the mechanism of transport of baryon number at SPS energies.

Speakers: Oleksandra Panova (Institute of Nuclear Physics Polish Academy of Sciences (PL)), Yuliia Balkova (National Centre for Nuclear Research (PL))

11:50 AM QCD phase boundary from strangeness fluctuations on a high statistics lattice data set

Speaker: Piyush Kumar (University of Wuppertal)

12:10 PM Yang-Lee edge singularity structure beyond standard lattice algorithms

Speaker: Szabolcs Istvan Borsanyi

12:30 PM Directed and Triangular Flow of Protons and Vector Mesons in the High Baryon Density Region at RHIC

Speaker: Guangyu Zheng (University of Chinese Academy of Sciences)

2:00 PM → 4:00 PM Session 12: Critical Point

Convener: Volker Koch

2:00 PM Probing the QCD critical point by finite-size scaling of fluctuations in Au+Au collisions at RHIC

Speaker: Yige Huang

2:20 PM News in the search for the critical point at NA61/SHINE.

The NA61/SHINE experiment at the CERN SPS is a multipurpose fixed-target spectrometer for charged and neutral hadron measurements. Its research program includes strong interaction studies focusing on the exploration of the QCD phase diagram and understanding the phase structures of strongly interacting matter, including the hypothesized QCD critical point. To map the QCD phase diagram, the experiment conducted beam momentum ($\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}} = 5 - 17$ GeV) and system size ($p$+$p$, $p$+Pb, Be+Be, Ar+Sc, Xe+La, Pb+Pb) scans.

In this contribution, we present recent measurements of multiplicity and net-electric charge fluctuations of higher order moments at NA61/SHINE as a function of system size ($p$+$p$, Ar+Sc) and collision energy. The results are compared across different energies, as well as against model predictions. We also present recent measurements of femtoscopic correlations, revealing that the shape of the particle-emitting source is not Gaussian. The measurements are based on alpha-stable symmetric L\'evy sources, and we discuss the average pair transverse mass, collision energy, and system size dependence of the source parameters. Finally, we summarize the current status of proton and $h^-$ intermittency analyses in the collision energy range $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}} = 5 - 17$ GeV, for a variety of nucleus-nucleus collisions (Ar+Sc, Xe+La, Pb+Pb).

Speaker: Barnabas Porfy (HUN-REN Wigner Research Centre for Physics (HU))

2:40 PM Measurement of (Net-)Proton Number Fluctuations in Au+Au Collisions from RHIC-STAR : A Centrality-independent Method

Speaker: Zhaohui Wang (Central China Normal University)

3:00 PM Inhomogeneous instabilities in high-density QCD

Speaker: Franz Richard Sattler (University Bielefeld)

3:20 PM Performance of the CBM experiment to study the net-proton fluctuations

Speaker: Rudrapriya Das (Bose Institute)

CPOD_Rudrapriya_CBM_fluctuations.pdf

3:40 PM Residual 3rd-body Coulomb Effect on Identical Charged Pion Correlations in Au+Au Collisions at STAR

Speaker: Nu Xu (Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (US))

4:00 PM → 4:30 PM Coffee Break

4:30 PM → 5:30 PM Session 13: Detectors and future

Convener: Piotr Gasik (GSI - Helmholtzzentrum fur Schwerionenforschung GmbH (DE))

4:30 PM Dectector development: DRD5

Speaker: Michael Doser (Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (US))

MDoser_Quantum_Sensors_CPOD_15.4.2026.pdf

4:50 PM CERN ion accelerator complex

Speaker: Reyes Alemany Fernandez (CERN)

5:10 PM ALICE 3: a next-generation heavy-ion detector for LHC Run 5

Speaker: Marianna Mazzilli (Universita e INFN, Bari (IT))

Thu, April 16

9:00 AM → 10:20 AM Session 14: Critical Point

Convener: Jan M. Pawlowski (Heidelberg University)

9:00 AM Full BSQ diffusion matrix effects in 3+1D simulations on conserved charge cumulants

Speaker: Kevin P. Pala

9:20 AM Constructing a 4D T'-expanded lattice QCD equation of state with a multi-dimensional critical contribution

Speaker: Francesco Di Clemente (University of Houston)

9:40 AM Towards a general framework for relativistic fluctuating hydrodynamics

Speaker: Xin An (Ghent University)

10:00 AM Real-time stochastic dynamics near a QCD critical point

Speaker: Thomas Schaefer

10:20 AM → 10:30 AM Workshop photo

10:30 AM → 10:50 AM Coffee Break

10:50 AM → 12:30 PM Session 15: Phase Transition

Convener: Misha Stephanov (UIC)

10:50 AM Electromagnetic probes experiments

Speaker: Szymon Harabasz

11:10 AM Low-mass, low-momentum virtual photon measurements with HADES

Speaker: Ms Iuliana-Carina Udrea (Technische Universität Darmstadt)

11:30 AM Combined Description of Thermal and Vacuum Contributions to the Dilepton Spectrum

Speaker: Jessica Ou Ya Vogel

11:50 AM How does a phase transition impact dilepton production?

Speaker: Renan Góes-Hirayama (FIAS)

12:10 PM Flow phenomena at high nuclear densities with HADES

Speaker: Mr Behruz Kardan (IKF, Uni-Frankfurt)

2:00 PM → 3:00 PM Session 16: Hadronisation

Convener: Andrzej Krzysztof Rybicki (Polish Academy of Sciences (PL))

2:00 PM Correlation of baryon number and charge at finite baryon density from S-matrix calculation

Speaker: Vojtěch Honěk (FNSPE, CTU in Prague)

2:20 PM Elliptic flow of deuterons and the mechanism of their production

Speaker: Boris Tomasik

2:40 PM Canonical statistical hadronization with local charge conservation for fluctuations and correlations

Speaker: Dr Volodymyr Vovchenko (University of Houston)

3:00 PM → 4:00 PM Session 17: Deconfined Matter

Convener: Xin Dong

3:00 PM Hidden news on strangeness production in NA61/SHINE

Speaker: Antoni Marcinek (Polish Academy of Sciences (PL))

3:20 PM Strange hadron production in O+O collisions at sqrt(s_NN)= 200 GeV at STAR

Speaker: Iris Ponce (Yale University)

3:40 PM System size dependence of particle production with ALICE

Speaker: Nicolò Jacazio (Universita del Piemonte Orientale (IT))

4:30 PM → 6:00 PM IAC meeting

7:30 PM → 9:30 PM Social dinner

Fri, April 17

9:00 AM → 10:40 AM Session 18: Hadronisation

Convener: Joachim Stroth

9:00 AM Baryon junctions

Speaker: Gregoire Marvin Nelson Pihan (University of Houston)

9:30 AM Hydrodynamic models of heavy ion collisions

Speaker: Dr Iurii Karpenko (FNSPE CTU in Prague)

10:00 AM Charged Pion Production in Au+Au Collisions at sqrt(s) =3 - 4.5 GeV with the STAR Detector

Speaker: Liubing Chen (Central China Normal University)

10:20 AM Packing baryons into a lattice: lattice QCD canonical results at physical quark masses

Speaker: Ludovica Pirelli (Bergische Universität Wuppertal)

10:40 AM → 11:10 AM Coffee Break

11:10 AM → 11:50 AM Session 19: Critical Point

Convener: Larry McLerran

11:10 AM How soft is strangeness-neutral QCD matter? Contrasting material parameters at finite baryon density from (2+1)-flavor lattice QCD with heavy-ion data

Speaker: Jishnu Goswami (Bielefeld University)

11:30 AM Antiproton puzzle

Speaker: Dr Volodymyr Vovchenko (University of Houston)

11:50 AM → 12:10 PM Closing