NA61/SHINE experiment at CERN SPS: Recent results, current status and perspectives

The NA61/SHINE experiment at the CERN SPS studies hadron production properties in hadron-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions. Recent results from p+p, Be+Be and Ar+Sc interactions provide new data on the system size and energy dependence of hadron multiplicities, spectra and fluctuations. In particular, they indicate a threshold for formation of large clusters interpreted as the onset of fireball. A scaled-factorial-moment analysis of the proton density fluctuations in Ar+Sc collisions at 150A GeV/c shows an intermittency signal, which may be a first trace of critical behavior. The main objective of the future NA61/SHINE program is to obtain high-precision data on charm hadron production. This new program is planed to start in 2021, after the Long Shutdown 2 of the CERN accelerators. It requires significant upgrades of the NA61/SHINE detectors in order to increase the data readout rate tenfold.