Abstract
FAIRNESS 2012 was the first in a series of workshops designed to bring together excellent international young scientists with research interests focused on physics at FAIR (Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research) and was held on 3–8 September 2012 in Hersonissos, Greece. The workshop covered a wide range of topics, both theoretical developments and current experimental status, that concentrated around the four scientific pillars of FAIR. FAIR is a new accelerator complex with brand new experimental facilities, that is currently being built next to the existing Helmholtzzentrum for Schwerionenforschung close to Darmstadt, Germany.
The spirit of the conference was to bring together young scientists, e.g. advanced PhD students and postdocs and young researchers without permament position to present their work and to foster active informal discussions and the build-up of networks. Every participant at the meeting, with the exception of the organizers, gave an oral presentation and all sessions were followed by an hour long discussion period. During the talks questions were collected anonymously in a circulating box to stimulate these discussions. Since the physics program of FAIR is very broad, this was reflected in the wide range of topics covered at the conference:
Physics of hot and dense nuclear matter, QCD phase transitions and critical point
Nuclear structure, astrophysics and reactions
Hadron Spectroscopy, Hadrons in matter and Hypernuclei
Special emphasis is put on the experiments CBM, HADES, PANDA, NuSTAR, as well as NICA and the RHIC low beam energy scan
New developments in atomic and plasma physics
In each of these different areas one invited speaker was selected to give a longer introductory presentation. The write-ups of the talks presented at FAIRNESS 2012 are the content of this issue of Journal of Physics: Conference Series and have been refereed according to the IOP standard for peer review. This issue constitutes therefore a collection of the forefront of research that is dedicated to the physics of FAIR.
February 2013,
Organizers of FAIRNESS 2012: Almudena Arcones, Marcus Bleicher, Miriam Fritsch, Tetyana Galatyuk, Diana Nicmorus, Hannah Petersen, Claudia Ratti and Laura Tolos
Support for holding the conference was provided by:
