The PANDA experiment at FAIR The world facility for QCD studies

The PANDA experiment is a core project of the future Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) at GSI in Darmstadt. It will investigate antiproton-proton annihilations on nucleons and nuclei with the aim to explore fundamental questions in the non-perturbative regime of QCD as the origin of the hadron mass. The multi-purpose detector is currently under construction. The intense and high quality anti-proton beam will span the momentum range between 1.5 and 15 GeV/c. Properties of hadrons, leptons, and photons in the final states will be determined with very high precision. A rich physics program including the study of resonances in the charmonium and open charm region, electromagnetic form factors, and hypernuclear physics is planned. The worldwide collaboration gathers today more than 450 physicists from 60 institutions in 19 countries. An overview of the PANDA experiment is given, focussing on aspects of the physics program that will be investigated as soon as the facility becomes operational.