My group was among the founders of the CERES experiment that pioneered the measurement of electron pairs at the CERN SPS at the center-of-mass energy in the nucleon-nucleon system of √sNN = 17.6 GeV. CERES discovered a strong enhancement of low-mass electron pairs first in S+Au collisions and later also in Pb+Au collisions. No enhancement was observed in p+p collisions (approximated by p+Be collisions) or in p+Au collisions. The enhancement is linked to the in-medium modification of the rho meson spectral function and to chiral symmetry restoration.
The group designed and constructed all the gas detectors of the CERES experimental set-up with all its upgrades. This includes the UV photon detectors of the original double RICH spectrometer, a pad chamber upgrade to improve the tracking capabilities, and the wire readout chambers of the TPC upgrade to improve the mass resolution.