The NA61/SHINE experiment at the CERN SPS is performing a uniqe study of the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter by varying collision energy and nuclear mass number of colliding nuclei. In central Pb+Pb collisions the NA49 experiment found structures in the energy dependence of several observables in the CERN SPS energy range that had been predicted for the transition to a deconfined phase. New measurements of NA61/SHINE find intriguing similarities in p+p interactions for which no deconfinement transition is expected at SPS energies. Possible implications will be discussed.
The analyzing power in inclusive charged pion production has been measured using the 200 GeV Fermilab polarized proton beam. A striking dependence in x F is observed in which A N increases from 0 to 0.42 with increasing x F for the π + data and decreases from 0 to −0.38 with increasing x F for π − data. The kinematic range covered is 0.2⩽ x F ⩽0.9 and 0.2⩽ p T ⩽2.0 GeV / c . In a simple model our data indicate that at large x F the transverse spin of the proton is correlated with that of its quark constituents.