Directed flow in heavy-ion collisions from the PHSD transport approach

Recent STAR data for the directed flow of protons, antiprotons, charged pions and kaons obtained within the beam energy scan (BES) program are analyzed within the Parton- Hadron-String-Dynamics (PHSD/HSD) transport models. Both versions of the kinetic approach are used to clarify the role of partonic degrees of freedom. The PHSD results, simulating a partonic phase and its coexistence with a hadronic one, are roughly consistent with the STAR data. Generally, the semi-qualitative agreement between the measured data and model results supports the idea of a crossover type of quark-hadron transition which softens the nuclear EoS but shows no indication of a first-order phase transition. Furthermore, the directed flow of kaons and antikaons is evaluated in the PHSD approach from ?sNN ? 5-12 GeV which shows a high sensitivity to the hadronic potentials in the FAIR/NICA energy regime ?sNN ?? 8 GeV.