STATUS OF THE COMPRESSED BARYONIC MATTER EXPERIMENT AT FAIR AND ITS SILICON TRACKING SYSTEM

The Compressed Baryonic Matter (CBM) experiment will carry out systematic research on the properties of nuclear matter under extreme conditions, in particular, at highest net baryon densities. These conditions will be met by colliding beams of heavy ions on targets in the energy range from 2 to 14, eventually 45 GeV/nucleon, as they will be provided with highest intensities by the heavy-ion synchrotron SIS-100, and in a future stage by the SIS-300 machine of the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) at GSI, Darmstadt, Germany. The paper summarizes the CBM physics case and observables, and updates on the status of the experimental preparations. The development of CBM's central detector, the Silicon Tracking System for charged particle reconstruction and momentum measurement, is described in more detail. Synergies with the commissioning of the tracker's components in the stationary target experiment BM@N, under preparation at an extraction beamline of JINR's Nuclotron, are addressed.