The Compressed Baryonic Matter experiment at FAIR

The CBM experiment will investigate highly compressed baryonic matter created in A+A collisions at the new FAIR research center. With a beam energy range up to 11 AGeV for the heaviest nuclei at the SIS 100 accelerator, CBM will investigate the QCD phase diagram in the intermediate range, i.e. at moderate temperatures but high net-baryon densities. This intermediate range of the QCD phase diagram is of particular interest, because a first order phase transition ending in a critical point and possibly new high density phases of strongly interacting matter are expected. In this range of the QCD phase diagram only exploratory measurements have been performed so far. CBM, as a next generation, high-luminosity experiment, will substantially improve our knowledge of matter created in this region of the QCD phase diagram and characterize its properties by measuring rare probes such as multi-strange hyperons, dileptons or charm, but also with event-by-event fluctuations of conserved quantities, and collective flow of identified particles. The experimental preparations with special focus on hadronic observables and strangeness is presented in terms of detector development, feasibility studies and fast track reconstruction. Preparations are progressing well such that CBM will be ready with FAIR start. As quite some detectors are ready before, they will be used as upgrades or extensions of already running experiments allowing for a rich physics program prior to FAIR start.